OLD  SHRINES 
I     AND  IVY 


WILLIAM  WINTER 


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OLD    SHRINES    AND    IVY 


OLD    SHRINES 
AND    IVY 


BY 
WILLIAM    WINTER 


"  I  do  love  these  ancient  ruins  : 
We  never  tread  upon  them  but  we  set 
Our  foot  upon  some  reverend  history. 
.   .   .  But  all  things  have  their  end" 

The  Duchess  of  Malfi 


EDINBURGH 

DAVID    DOUGLAS 

NEW    YORK 

MACMILLAN   &   CO. 
1892 


Copyright,  1892, 
By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


Typography  by  J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.,  Boston,  U.S.A. 
Presswork  by  Berwick  &  Smith,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


D/l 


TO 

(3toxQt  raniiam  Curtis 

AVITH   HONOUR  FOR  A  NOBLE   MIND 

AND  A   BEAUTIFUL   LIFE 

AND   WITH   AFFECTIONATE    MEMORIES 

OF   MUCH    KINDNESS 

DURING  MORE   THAN   THIRTY   YEARS   OF 

UNCLOUDED   FRIENDSHIP 

I     DEDICATE     THIS     BOOK 


"  Ibimus,  ibimus, 
Utcunque  jyrsecedesi,  supremum 
Carpere  iter  comites  parati  " 


PEEFACE. 


The  shrines  upon  ichich  these  offerings 
of  homage  are  laid  are  shrines  of  history 
and  shrines  of  literature.  It  has  been  the 
author's  design,  alike  in  description  and 
commentary,  and  ichether  depicting  scenes  of 
travel  or  celebrating  achievements  of  genius, 
to  carry  through  his  books  the  thread  of 
Shakespearean  interest.  The  study  of 
Shakespeare  is  the  study  of  life.  There  can 
be  no  broader  or  higher  subject.  In  these 
sketches  and  essays,  accordingly,  the  reader 
is  desired  not  only  to  ramble  in  various 
parts  of  England,  Scotland,  and  France, 
but  especially  to  linger  for  a  ichile  in  lovely 
Warii'ickshire,  and  to  meditate  upon  some 
of  the  works  of  that  divine  poet  with  ichose 
story  and  ichose  spirit  that  region  is  hal- 

7 


8  PREFACK. 

loved.  Historical  facts  that  are  recounted, 
in  the  course  of  these  papers,  respecting 
Shakespeare  pieces  and  a  few  others,  are 
not  new  to  the  dramatic  scholar;  but  even 
to  him  a  siimmary  of  knowledge,  combined 
with  definite  thought,  as  to  those  ii'ritings, 
may  prove  not  unwelcome. 

Most  of  the  essays  on  the  plays  icere  torit- 
ten  at  the  suggestion  of  my  old  friend 
Augustin  Daly,  and  were  p>rivately  printed, 
by  way  of  introduction  to  stage-versions  of 
those  plays,  edited  by  him.  A  thread  of 
theatrical  history  therefore  appears  in  those 
essays,  entwined  with  disquisition  on  the 
beauties  of  some  of  the  most  cherished  treas- 
ures of  our  language.  The  paper  commem- 
orative of  Longfellow  was  written  in  the 
New  York  Tribune  at  the  time  of  his  death. 

W.    W. 

May,  1892. 


CONTENTS. 


I.    Shrines  of  History. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON  .           .           .13 

II.  PAGEANTRY    AND   RELICS           .           .        25 

III.  THE    SHAKESPEARE   CHURCH  .        31 

IV.  A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE        .           ,        40 
V.  FROM    LONDON   TO  DOVER         .           .        55 

VI.  BEAUTIES    OF   FRANCE      ...        60 

VII.  ELY    AND    ITS   CATHEDRAL        .           .        75 

VIII.  FROM    EDINBURGH   TO   INVERNESS,        ST) 

IX.  THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEN          .            .         98 

X.  STORM-BOUND   IN   lONA    .           .           .      107 


lO  CONTKNTS. 

IT.    Shkines  of  Litkrature. 

niAP.  PAGE 

XI,      THE   FOREST  OF  ARDEX  :    AS  YOU 

LIKE   IT 133 

XII.      FAIRY      LAND    :       A      MIDSUMMER 

night's    DREAM  .  .  .      1G3 

XIII.  WILL    O'    THE    wisp:     LOVE'S    LA- 

BOUR'S   LOST  ....      187 

XIV.  SHAKESPEARE'S    SHREW  .  .      207 

XV.      A     MAD     world:      ANTONY     AND 

CLEOPATRA  ....      219 

XVI.      SHERIDAN  AND   THE    SCHOOL   FOR 

SCANDAL 224 

XVII.      FARQUHAR       AND       THE       INCON- 
STANT   240 

XVIII.      LONGFELLOW 201 

XIX.      A    THOUGHT     ON    COOPER'S     NOV- 
ELS         281 

XX.      A   MAN    OF    letters:    JOHN    R.   O. 

HASSARD 285 


I 

SHKINES   OF   HISTOEY 


OLD  SHEIXES   AXD   IVY 


STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON. 

EARLY  in  the  morning  of  a  brilliant  July 
day  the  Scilly  islands  came  into  view, 
a  little  to  the  south  of  our  course,  and  we 
could  see  the  great  waves  breaking  into 
flying  masses  and  long  wreaths  of  silver 
foam,  on  their  grim  shores  and  in  their 
rock-bound  chasms.  Yet  a  little  while  and 
the  steep  cliffs  of  Cornwall  glimmered  into 
the  prospect,  and  then  came  the  double 
towers  of  the  Lizard  Light,  and  we  knew 
that  our  voyage  was  accomplished.  The 
rest  of  the  way  is  the  familiar  panorama 
of  the  channel  coast  —  lonely  Eddystone, 
keeping  its  sentinel  watch  in  solitude  and 
danger  ;  the  green  pasture  lands  of  Devon  ; 
the  crags  of  Portland,  gray  and  emerald 
and  gold,  shining,  changing,  and  fading  in 
silver  mist  ;  the  shelving  fringes  of  the 
Solent  ;  the  sandy  coves  and  green  hills  of 

13 


14  STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON. 

the  beautiful  Isle  of  Wight ;  and  placid 
Southampton  Water  with  .its  little  light- 
houses and  its  crescent  town,  vital  with  the 
incessant  enterprise  of  the  present  and  rich 
with  splendid  associations  of  the  past.  The 
gloaming  had  begun  to  die  into  night  when 
we  landed,  and  in  the  sleepy  stillness  of  the 
vacant  streets  and  of  the  quiet  inn  we  were 
soon  conscious  of  that  feeling  of  peace  and 
comfort  which  is  the  first  sensation  of  the 
old  traveller  who  comes  again  into  England. 
It  is  the  sensation  —  after  long  wandering 
and  much  vicissitude  —  of  being  at  home 
and  at  rest ;  and  you  seldom,  or  never,  find 
it  elsewhere. 

If  the  old  city  of  Southampton  were  not,  to 
the  majority  of  ramblers,  merely  a  port  of 
entry  and  departure,  if  the  traveller  were 
constrained  to  seek  it  as  a  goal  instead  of 
treating  it  as  a  thoroughfare,  its  uncommon 
physical  beauty  and  its  exceptional  anti- 
quarian interest  would  be  more  fitly  appre- 
ciated and  more  highly  prized  than  they 
appear  to  be  at  present.  Objects  that  are 
viewed  as  incidental  are  seldom  compre- 
hended as  important.  Traffic,  with  its 
attendant  bustle,  imparts  to  Southampton 
shores  an  air  of  turbulence  and  common- 
ness.    The  popular  spirit  of  our  age,  not- 


STOKIED    SOUTHAMPTOX.  I  5 

withstanding  there  is  a  newly  awakened 
feeling  of  reverence  actively  at  work,  makes 
no  account  of  picturesque  accessories  and 
does  nothing  either  to  create  or  to  perpetu- 
ate them.  In  Southampton,  for  example, 
just  as  in  ancient  Warwick,  a  tramcar 
jangles  through  the  grim  arch  of  a  gray 
stone  gate  of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  this 
way  the  Present  makes  its  comment  on  the 
Past.  Yet  the  Present  and  the  Past  are 
inseparably  associated,  —  the  one  being  the 
consequence  and  inheritor  of  the  other,  — 
and  in  no  way  better  can  the  student  of 
social  development  pursue  his  study  than 
m  rambling  through  the  streets  and  among 
the  structures  that  to-day  has  built  amid 
the  ruins  and  the  relics  of  yesterday.  A 
walk  in  breezy  Southampton  was  full  of  in- 
struction. There  was  a  great  and  merry 
multitude  upon  the  lovely  green  Common, 
when  first  I  saw  it,  a  band  was  playing  in 
its  pavilion,  and  birds  w^ere  circling  and 
twittering  around  the  tree-tops  in  the  light 
of  the  evening  sun ;  but  as  I  stood  there  and 
watched  the  happy  throng  and  listened  to 
the  martial  music  the  scene  seemed  sud- 
denly to  change,  and  I  beheld  the  armoured 
cohorts  of  Henry  V. ,  and  heard  the  trum- 
pets bray,  and  saw  the  gallant  king,  upon 


l6  STORIED    SOUTIIAMl'TOX. 

his  mail-clad  charger,  riding  downward  to 
the  sea,  for  Agincourt  and  the  laurel  of 
everlasting  fame. 

Many  days  might  be  pleasantly  spent  in 
SouthamptOQi  and  its  storied  neighbourhood. 
You  are  at  the  mouth  of  the  Itchen  —  the 
river  of  Izaak  Walton,  who  lived  and  died 
at  venerable  Winchester,  only  a  few  miles 
aw\ay.  Netley  Abbey  is  close  by.  On  every 
side,  indeed,  there  is  something  to  stimu- 
late the  fancy  and  to  awaken  remembrance 
of  historic  lore.  King  John's  house  is 
extant,  in  Blue  Anchor  lane.  King  John's 
charter  may  be  seen  in  the  Audit  House. 
The  Bridewell  Gate  still  stands,  that  was 
built  by  Henry  VIII.,  and  in  Bugle  street 
is  the  Spanish  prison  that  was  used  in  the 
time  of  Queen  Anne.  At  the  foot  of  the 
High  street  stood  King  Canute's  palace  ; 
and  Upon  the  neighbouring  beach  the  mon- 
arch spoke  his  vain  command  to  stay  the 
advancing  waves  and  made  his  memorable 
submission  to  the  Power  that  is  greater 
than  kings.  In  St.  Michael's  square  they 
show  you  an  ancient  red-tiled  house,  made 
of  timber  and  brick,  in  which  Anne  Boleyn 
once  lived,  with  her  royal  lord  Henry  VIII, , 
and  which  bears  her  name  to  this  day.  It 
is  a  two-story  building,  surmounted  with 


STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON.  1 7 

four  large  gables,  the  front  curiously  diver- 
sified with  a  crescent  pent  and  with  four 
great  diamond-latticed  casements  ;  and  gaz- 
ing upon  it  I  could  not  fail  to  conjure  up  a 
vision  of  that  dark-eyed,  golden-haired 
beauty  whose  fascination  played  so  large  a 
part  in  shaping  the  religious  and  political 
destiny  of  England.  There  she  may  have 
stood,  in  the  gloaming,  and  looked  forth 
upon  the  grim  and  gloomy  Norman  church 
that  still  frowns  upon  the  lonely  square  and 
would  make  a  darkness  even  at  noon.  A 
few  steps  from  St.  Michael's  will  bring  you 
to  a  relic  of  a  different  kind,  fraught  with 
widely  different  associations  —  the  birth- 
place of  the  pious  poet  Isaac  Watts.  The 
house  stands  in  French  street,  a  little  back 
from  the  sidewalk,  on  the  east  side,  and  is 
a  two-story  red-brick  dwelling,  having  eight 
windows  in  the  front  of  it  and  two  doors. 
Between  the  house  and  the  street  there  is 
a  garden  which  was  brilliant  with  the  blaz- 
ing yellow  of  a  mass  of  blooming  marigolds. 
A  tall  iron  fence  encloses  the  garden,  within 
which  are  six  poplar  trees  growing  along 
the  margin,  and  if  you  stand  at  the  gate 
and  look  along  French  street  you  can  dis- 
cern Southampton  Water,  at  no  great  dis- 
tance.    They  venerate  the  memory  of  Dr. 


i8  STORIED  soniiAMrrox. 

Watts  ill  this  town,  and  they  have  not  only 
built  a  church  in  his  honour,  just  above 
Bar  Gate,  but  have  set  up  his  statue  (by 
Mr.  Lucas)  in  the  park,  —  the  fic;^ire  of  the 
apostolic  bard  as  he  appeared  when  in  the 
act  to  preach.  That  piece  of  sculpture  — 
the  pedestal  of  which  is  faced  with  medal- 
lions illustrative  of  the  life  and  labours  of 
the  bard  —  was  appropriately  dedicated  by 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  in  July  1861. 
Leaving  the  birthplace  of  Watts  you  have 
only  to  turn  a  neighbouring  corner  and  pro- 
ceed a  short  distance  to  find  an  effect  of 
contrast  still  more  remarkable  —  the  rem- 
nant of  the  Doinus  Dei,  in  Winkle  street, 
the  burial-place  of  the  decapitated  nobles, 
Scrope,  Gray,  and  Cambridge,  who  lost  their 
lives  for  conspiracy  to  assassinate  King 
Henry  V.  This  was  an  almshouse  in 
Henry's  day  and  later  [it  was  founded  in 
the  reign  of  Richard  I.],  but  only  the 
chapel  of  it  remains,  and  that  has  been 
restored  —  a  small,  dark,  oblong  structure, 
partly  Norman  and  partly  Early  English. 
Queen  Elizabeth  assigned  that  church  for 
the  use  of  Protestant  refugees  who  fled 
from  the  persecution  of  the  tyrant  Alva  — 
so  active  in  the  Low  Countries  from  1567 
to  1573.     Service  is  still  performed  in  it, 


STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON.  I9 

ill  the  French  language.  Under  the  chancel 
floor  of  that  old  edifice  rest  the  ashes  of  the 
false  friends  [dismissed  to  their  death 
nearly  five  centuries  ago]  who  would  have 
slain  their  king  and  imperilled  their  coun- 
try ;  and  upon  the  south  wall,  near  the 
altar,  there  is  a  tablet  of  gray  stone,  with 
indented,  blackened  letters,  bearing  this 
record  of  their  fate  : 

RICHARD,    EARL    OF    CAMBRIDGE, 

LORD    SCROPE    OF    MASHAM, 

SIR    THO.    GRAY    OF    XORTHUMBERLAND, 

CONSPIRED    TO    MURDER    KING 

HEXRT    V,    IX    THIS    TOWN    AS    HE 

WAS   PREPARING    TO    SAIL   WITH   HIS 

ARMY    AGAINST    CHARLES    THE    SIXTH, 

KING   OF    FRANCE,    FOR    WHICH 

CONSPIRACY    THEY    WERE    EXECUTED 

AND    BURIED   NEAR    THIS    PLACE 

IN   THE    YEAR 

MCCCCXV, 

As  you  stand  by  that  sepulchre  you  will 
remember  with  a  new  interest  and  emotion 
the  noble,  pathetic  speech  —  as  high  a 
strain  of  pure  elociuence  and  lofty  passion 
as  there  is  in  our  language  —  with  which 
Shakespeare  makes  the  heroic  prince  de- 
plore and  rebuke,  at  the  same  instant,  the 


20  STOKIED    SOUTHAMPTON. 

treachery  of  the  friendship  in  which  lie  had 
entirely  beHeved  and  trusted.  Those  lords 
were  beheaded  just  outside  of  Bar  Gate. 
Near  their  tomb,  leaning  against  the  wall, 
is  a  beautiful  old  brass,  —  the  full-length 
figure  of  a  French  cleric  of  the  time  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  —  mounted  upon  an  oak 
board ;  the  head  being  carved  in  marble, 
while  the  person  is  of  the  dark  green  hue 
that  old  brasses  so  often  acquire,  and  that 
seems  to  enhance  at  once  their  interest  and 
their  opulent  effect. 

In  Southampton,  as  indeed  all  over  Eng- 
land, the  disiDOsition  to  preserve  the  relics 
of  a  romantic  past  is  stronger  at  present  than 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago  ;  and  for  this 
the  antiquary  has  reason  to  be  deeply  grate- 
ful. His  constant  regret,  indeed,  is  that 
this  gentle  impulse  did  not  awaken  earlier. 
The  old  Castle  of  Southampton  [where  King 
Stephen  reigned,  who  ' '  was  a  worthy  peer ' '  ] 
was  long  ago  destroyed ;  but  fragments  of 
the  walls  remain,  and  these,  it  is  pleasant 
to  observe,  are  guarded  with  scrupulous 
care.  As  you  stroll  along  the  shore  your 
gaze  will  wander  from  the  gay  and  busy 
steamboats,  —  alert  for  the  channel  islands 
and  for  France,  and  seeming  like  brilliant 
birds  that  plume  their  wings  for  flight, — 


STORIED    SOUTIIAMPTOX.  21 

and  will  rest  on  grim  towers  and  bastions 
of  the  thirteenth  and  the  fifteenth  centuries, 
over  which  the  ivy  hangs  in  dense  draperies 
of  shining  emerald,  and  against  which  the 
copious  flowers  of  geranimn  and  nasturtium 
blaze  in  scarlet  and  gold.  One  of  those  cit- 
adels, peacefully  occupied  now  by  the  Har- 
bour Board,  bears  record  of  a  time,  in  1482, 
when  gunpowder  was  used  there,  to  repel 
a  night  attack  made  by  the  French  ;  so  that 
the  American  pilgrim,  upon  this  spot,  is 
usefully  reminded  that  there  were  lively 
times  in  the  world  even  before  Columbus 
made  his  interesting  discovery.  A  strag- 
gling procession  of  belated  travellers,  bear- 
ing bags,  rushed  wildly  by,  as  I  stood  before 
that  gray  remnant  of  feudal  magnificence, 
and  an  idle  youth  in  the  gateway,  happily 
furnished  with  a  fiageolet,  gayly  performed 
upon  it  "The  girl  I  left  behind  me." 
Nothing  can  exceed,  in  mingled  strange- 
ness and  drollery,  the  use  of  these  quaint 
places  for  the  business  and  the  pleasure  of 
the  passing  hour.  Koaming  through  the 
narrow  little  squalid  thoroughfare  of  Blue 
Anchor  lane,  amid  the  picturesque  foun- 
dations of  what  was  once  the  royal  palace 
of  John  and  of  Henry  III.,  —  now  a  mass  of 
masonry  that  has  outlasted  the  storms  and 


22  STORIED    SOUTllAMl'TON. 

ravai:;(^s  of  a  thousand  years,  —  I  looked 
into  dingy  lodging-houses  that  arc  scarcely 
more  than  holes  in  a  wall,  and  threaded  a 
difficult  way  among  groups  of  ragged  chil- 
dren, silenced  for  a  moment  by  the  presence 
of  a  stranger,  but  soon  loud  again  in  their 
careless  frolic  over  the  crumbling  grandeur 
of  forgotten  kings.  Blue  Anchor  lane 
leads  to  the  Arcade  in  the  west  wall  of  the 
city,  which,  with  its  nineteen  splendid 
arches,  is  surely  as  fine  a  specimen  of  true 
Norman  architecture  as  could  be  found  in 
this  kingdom.  Bar  Gate,  at  the  top  of  the 
High  street,  is  also  a  noble  relic  of  Norman 
taste  and  skill ;  but  Bar  Gate  has  been 
somewhat  modernised  by  changes  and  res- 
toration ;  and  the  statue,  upon  its  south 
front,  of  George  III.  in  the  dress  of  a 
Roman  Emperor,  mars  its  venerable  antiq- 
uity with  a  touch  of  unconsciously  comic 
humour. 

Many  excursions  are  practicable  from 
Southampton.  One  of  the  prettiest  of  them 
is  the  drive  westward,  by  the  Commercial 
roa-d  and  "Romsey  lane,  to  the  village  of 
Millbrook,  where  there  is  an  old  church,  and 
where  —  in  the  adjacent  cemetery  —  an  obe- 
lisk of  granite  marks  the  resting-place  of 
the  poet   Robert   Pollock,    author  of    The 


STORIED    SOUTHAMPTON.  23 

Course  of  Time  —  a  poem  much  read  and 
admired  by  pious  people  sixty  years  ago. 
Another,  which  may  better  be  made  on  foot, 
is  the  ramble  along  the  avenue  to  South- 
ampton Common,  and  so,  beneath  oaks, 
elms,  and  lime-trees,  and  through  ''  a  sweet 
disorder"  of  shrubbery  and  gorse,  to  the 
beautiful  cemetery  in  which  hawthorns, 
evergreens,  and  a  profusion  of  all  the  flowers 
that  grow  in  this  radiant  land  have  made  a 
veritable  bower  for  the  awful  silence  and  in- 
scrutable majesty  of  death.  I  wandered 
there  to  look  upon  the  burial-place  of  my 
old  friend  Edward  Sothem,  and  I  came  upon 
it,  in  an  afternoon  that  was  all  sunshme 
and  fragrance,  — like  those  days  of  careless 
mirth  that  once  we  knew  together.  There 
never  was  a  droller  or  more  whimsical  spirit. 
There  never  was  a  comedian  who  to  the 
faculty  of  eccentric  humour  added  a  more 
subtle  power  of  intellectual  perception  and 
artistic  purpose.  Few  players  of  our  time 
have  made  so  much  laughter  or  given  so 
much  innocent  pleasure.  But  he  could  not 
bear  prosperity,  and  he  lived  too  much  for 
enjoyment  —  and  so,  prematurely,  his  bright 
career  ended.  A  simple  cross  of  white 
marble  marks  the  place  of  his  last  sleep  and 
the  leaves  of  a  sturdy  oak  rustle  over  his 


24  STORIKD    SOUTH  AM  I'TOX. 

head  ;  and  as  I  turned  away  from  that  place 
of  peace  I  saw  the  shimmering  roses  all 
around,  and  heard  the  cawing  of  the  rooks 
in  the  distant  elms,  and  felt  and  knew  that 
in  this  slumber  there  are  no  dreams  and  that 
with  the  dead  all  is  well. 

Artemas  Ward  died  in  Southampton: 
Edward  Sothern  is  buried  there.  It  seems 
but  yesterday  since  those  lords  of  frolic 
were  my  companions ;  but  the  grass  has 
long  been  gi-owing  over  them  and  even  the 
echo  of  their  laughter  has  died  away.  His- 
toric association  dignifies  a  place  ;  but  it  is 
the  personal  association  that  makes  it  fa- 
miliar. From  Southampton  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago, 
sailed  away  to  found  another  England  in 
the  western  wild.  Innumerable  legends  of 
that  kind  haunt  the  town  and  hallow  it. 
Yet  to  one  dreamer  its  name  will  ever,  first 
of  all,  bring  back  the  slumberous  whisper 
of  leaves  that  ripple  in  a  summer  wind 
and  the  balm  of  flowers  that  breathe  their 
blessing  on  a  comrade's  rest. 


PAGEANTRY    AND    RELICS.  25 


II. 

PAGEANTRY    AND    RELICS. 

A  PLEASANT  coiu'se,  if  you  would  drift 
from  the  channel  coast  into  the  Mid- 
lands, is  to  go  from  Southampton,  by  either 
Winchester  or  less  directly  by  Salisbury,  to 
Basingstoke,  and  thence  northward  by  Read- 
ing and  Oxford.  Another  good  way  — 
which  has  been  mine  —  is  to  loiter  slowly 
along  the  west  of  England,  taking  the  track 
of  the  cathedral  towns,  and  viewing  what- 
ever of  historic  interest  may  be  observed  in 
those  places  and  in  the  pleasant  and  mem- 
orable regions  that  environ  them.  There 
should  be  no  inexorable  route,  —  for  the 
chief  charm  of  English  travel  is  liberty  of 
caprice  ;  and  whichever  way  you  turn  you 
are  sure  to  find  some  peculiar  beauty  that 
will  reward  your  quest.  My  path  (July 
1891)  has  traversed  Salisbury,  Amesbury, 
Stonehenge,  Glastonbury,  Wells,  Cheddar, 
Bristol,  Gloucester,  Worcester,  and  Eves- 
ham ;  and  all  the  while  it  has  seemed  to 


26  I'ACJKAM  i:V    AM)    KEI.ICS. 

wind  through  a  fairy  reahn  of  flowt-rs  and 
of  (Ircaiiis.  Each  part  of  Eughiml  has  its 
charming  peculiarities,  but  the  general  char- 
acteristics of  English  scenery  are  uniform. 
The  cities  are  the  workshops:  the  rest  is 
one  great  garden  of  diversified  and  ever- 
changing  beauty.  As  you  range  through 
the  country  you  gaze  on  wooded  hills  in  the 
glimmering  distance,  dark  or  bright  beneath 
skies  of  rain  or  sun  —  never  one  thing  long, 
but  always  fickle,  like  a  capricious  girl 
whose  loveliness  is  the  more  bewitching  be- 
cause unsure.  Green  fields  fill  the  fore- 
ground, in  which  cattle  are  grazing  and 
sheep  are  couched  beneath  the  trees.  Here 
and  there  a  stately  manor-house  gleams 
from  its  lordly  gi'ove.  Little  cottages,  pic- 
turesque with  roofs  of  thatch  and  with  tiny 
latticed  windows,  nestle  by  the  roadside. 
Some  of  the  fields  have  just  been  gleaned 
and  ploughed,  so  that  the  bare  earth,  in  rich 
brown  squares,  affords  a  lively  contrast 
with  meadows  of  brilliant  grass  and  masses 
of  rippling  barley.  Now  and  then  you  see 
a  comely  mare,  with  her  awkward  little  colt, 
reposing  in  the  shadow  of  a  copse.  Yellow 
haystacks,  artfully  trimmed,  attract  the  eye, 
and  circular  clumps  of  trees  upon  the  hill- 
slopes  attest  the  wise,  prescient  care  of  the 


PAGEANTRY    AND    RELIC'S.  27 

gardeners  of  long  ago.  The  land  is  gently 
undulating  and  in  the  valleys  there  are  rows 
of  pollard  willows,  by  which  you  may  trace 
the  current  of  a  hidden  stream.  Far  away, 
or  near  at  hand  sometimes,  suddenly  apj)ears 
a  gray  spire  or  a  gTim  tower,  suggesting  a 
thought  of  monastic  seclusion  or  a  reminis- 
cence of  historic  antiquity.  AVhite  roads, 
often  devoid  for  many  miles  equally  of  vehi- 
cles and  pedestrians,  wind  through  the  level 
plains  and  over  the  ridges  of  lonely  hills. 
Elvers  gleam  in  the  landscape,  some  rapid 
and  some  tranquil.  Kain- clouds  drift  fre- 
quently over  the  scene,  but  only  serve  to 
make  it  more  sweetly  beautiful.  The  past 
and  the  present  are  softly  blended  in  a  gen- 
tle pageant  of  wood  and  meadowy  park  and 
common,  church  and  castle,  lawn  and  past- 
ure, clouds  that  are  like  cloth  of  bronze,  and 
earth  that  is  clad  in  emerald  and  scarlet ; 
while  over  the  broad  expanse  of  this  various 
loveliness,  in  which  the  fresh  garlands  of 
Nature  deck  with  perennial  bloom  the 
crumbling  relics  of  an  historic  architectural 
grandeur  that  is  dead  and  gone,  the  skies  of 
summer  brood  with  a  benediction  of  peace. 
It  is  the  natural  desire  for  change  of 
scenery  that  prompts  an  Englishman  to 
visit  other  lands  :  but  he  can  find  no  other 


28  PAGEANTRY    AND    RELICS. 

land  that  is  as  rich  as  his  own  in  thoso 
tl'easures  of  suggestion  which  arc  the  chief 
gain  of  travel.  One  picture  of  the  old  famil- 
iar Shakespeare  country  may  stand  for 
many  that  are  constantly  within  his  reach. 
A  spiral  stair  of  forty-five  steps  gives  access, 
for  the  adventurous  explorer,  to  the  ring- 
ing-loft of  the  tower  of  Stratford  church, i 
and  a  ladder  of  nineteen  rounds  will  then 
conduct  him  to  the  bell-chamber  above. 
He  may  climb  further  if  he  likes  to  do  so, 
and  ascend  into  the  interior  of  the  stone 
spire.  This  is  not  the  oak  spire,  covered 
with  lead,  that  Shakespeare  saw,  but  one 
that  replaced  it  in  174G.  From  the  ring- 
ing-loft a  small  portal  will  give  egress  to 
the  chancel  rpof.  In  all  directions  the 
prospect  from  the  tower  is .  beautiful. 
Looking  westward  along  the  nave,  the  ob- 
server will  view  a  considerable  part  of  the 
old  town,  —  the  slate  roofs  of  its  thick- 
clustering,  red-brick  dwellings  wet  with 
recent  rain  and  shining  in  the  fitful  sun- 
light, —  and  beyond  it  the  bold  crest  and 

1  In  the  winding  stair  that  leads  to  the  top  of  the 
great  tower  of  Warwick  Castle  there  are  one  hundred 
and  thirty-three  steps.  In  the  spiral  that  leads  to 
the  top  of  the  tower  of  St.  Mary's  church,  Warwick, 
there  are  one  hundred  and  sixty. 


PAGEANTRY    AXD    RELICS.  29 

green  slopes  of  Borden  hill,  where  "the 
wild  thyme ' '  grows  in  sweet  luxuriance, 
and  where,  since  it  is  close  to  Shottery,  the 
poet,  as  he  strolled  with  his  sweetheart  in 
those  distant  days  when  love  w^as  young, 
possibly  may  have  found  (as  many  Shake- 
speareans  think  he  did)  the  fragrant '  •  bank  ■ ' 
of  the  Jlklsumme)'  XigJifs  Dream.  South- 
ward stands  the  crag-like  hill  of  Meon,  once 
a  stronghold  of  the  Danes,  and  far  away 
the  lonely  Broadway  tower  looms  faintly 
on  the  ridge  of  its  emerald  highland. 
Further  still  and  still  more  dimly  visible  is 
the  wavering  outline  of  the  Malvern  hills. 
In  the  north,  weltering  beneath  the  sombre 
rain-clouds  of  retreating  storm,  are  the 
gTeen  heights  of  Welcombe,  where  once  the 
Saxons  had  a  fortified  camp  ;  while  near  at 
hand  you  see  the  turrets  of  the  Shakespeare 
Memorial ;  stately  Avonbank  with  its 
wealth  of  various  trees  and  its  flower- 
spangled  terraces  ;  and  the  old  churchyard 
of  Stratford,  in  which  the  roses  bloom  freely 
over  man's  decay,  and  in  which  the  gray, 
lichen- covered  stones  are  cold  and  forlorn 
against  the  brilliant  green  of  the  sun- smit- 
ten sod.  A  wide  stretch  of  dark  emerald 
meadow,  intersected  with  long,  dense  hedge- 
rows of  hawthorn  and   wild  honeysuckle, 


30  rA<;i;ANTUY  and  H^:LICS. 

Jills  the  lu'iir  prospect,  in  the  east,  while 
gently  sloping  hills  extend  into  the  distance 
beyond,  some  wooded  and  some  bare,  and 
all  faintly  enwreathed  with  silver  mist.  At 
the  base  of  the  tower  flows  the  Avon,  its 
dark  waters  wrinkled  by  the  breeze.  Rooks 
are  cawing  over  Avonbank.  Swifts  and 
swallows  are  twittering  around  the  spire. 
The  leafy  boughs  of  those  great  elms 
that  engirdle  Shakespeare's  church  toss 
and  rustle  in  the  strong  wind.  Sudden 
shafts  of  sunlight  illumine  the  lovely 
pageant,  far  and  near,  and  soon  the  glory 
of  the  west  fades  into  that  tender  gloaming 
which  is  the  crowning  charm  of  the  English 
summer  day.  There  is  no  need  to  roam 
far  afleld  when  you  can  gaze  upon  scenes  at 
home  that  are  at  once  so  lovely  to  the  vision 
and  so  enchanting  with  association  for  the 
imaginative  mind. 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHIHCH.  3I 


III. 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH. 

THE  renovation  of  the  Shakespeare  church 
has  not  (July  1891)  been  completed; 
but  only  a  few  old  things  in  it  remain  to  be 
destroyed,  and  no  doubt  the  final  strokes 
will  be  delivered  within  a  short  time.  The 
glory  and  the  grandeur  of  that  old  church 
cannot,  indeed,  be  entirely  despoiled,  even 
by  the  superserviceable  zeal  of  bigotry  and 
tlie  regulative  spirit  of  button -making  con- 
vention. Something  of  venerable  majesty 
must  still  survive  in  the  gray,  mossy  stones 
of  that  massive  tower  and  in  the  gloomy 
battlements  of  nave  and  chancel  through 
which  the  winds  of  night  sigh  sadly  over 
Shakespeare's  dust.  The  cold  sublimity 
of  the  ancient  fabric,  with  its  environment 
of  soft  and  gentle  natural  beauty  and  its 
associations  of  poetic  renown,  can  never  be 
wholly  dispelled.  Almost  everything  has 
been  done,  however,  that  could  be  done  to 
make  the  place  modern  and  conventional. 


32  THE    SHAKKSPEARE    CIIUKCH. 

The  appearance  of  the  church,  especially  of 
its  interior,  has  been  materially  changed. 
A  few  of  the  changes  were,  perhaps,  essen- 
tial, and  those  may  have  been  made  wisely  ; 
and  all  of  the  changes  have  been  made  with 
mechanical  skill  if  not  always  with  taste. 
A  few  more  touches,  and  the  inside  of  the 
ancient  building  will  be  as  neat  and  prim 
as  a  box  of  candles.  That  was  the  avowed 
object  of  the  restoration  —  to  make  the 
church  appear  as  it  used  to  appear  when  it 
was  built  and  before  it  had  acquired  any 
association  whatever ;  and  that  object  has 
been  measurably  accomplished.  But  all 
change  here  was  an  injury. 

When  all  is  over  and  old  things  have  been 
made  new  the  devotees  of  Shakespeare  may 
be  asked  wiiat  it  is  of  which  they  think  they 
have  reason  to  complain.  Their  answer  is 
ready.  They  wanted  to  have  the  church 
repaired ;  they  did  not  want  to  have  it  re- 
built. Alteration  was  unnecessary  and  it 
was  wrong.  The  Shakespeare  church  is  a 
national  monument.  More  than  that — it 
is  a  literary  shrine  for  all  the  world.  There 
was  an  indescribable  poetic  charm  about 
the  old  edifice,  which  had  been  bestowed 
upon  it  not  by  art  but  by  time.  That  charm 
needed  only  to  be  left  untouched.    Nothhig 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH.  ^;^ 

should  ever  have  been  done  to  dispel  it. 
The  building  had  acquired  character.  It 
had  become  venerable  with  age,  storied  with 
association,  and  picturesque  with  quaint- 
ness.  The  suns  and  the  storms  of  centuries 
had  left  their  traces  on  its  walls.  The 
actions  and  sufferings,  the  inspirations  and 
eccentricities  of  successive  generations  had 
impressed  themselves  upon  its  fabric.  It  had 
been  made  individual  and  splendid,  —  like 
a  visage  of  some  noble  old  saint  of  mediae- 
val times,  a  face  lined  and  seamed  with 
thought,  dignified  with  experience,  subli- 
mated with  conquered  passion.  Above  all, 
it  had  enshrined,  for  nearly  three  hmidred 
years,  the  ashes  of  the  greatest  poet  —  and 
therefore  the  greatest  benefactor  of  human- 
ity —  that  ever  lived.  All  that  was  asked 
was  that  it  should  be  left  alone.  To  repair 
it  in  certain  particulars  became  a  necessity  ; 
but  to  alter  it  was  to  do  it  an  irreparable 
harm.  That  harm  has  been  done  ;  and 
it  is  that  which  the  Shakespeare  scholar 
resents  and  deplores ;  and  he  is  right  to 
do  so. 

I  lately  went  into  the  chancel  and  stood 

there  alone,  in  front  of  the  altar,  and  looked 

around  —  m  amazement  and  sorrow.     The 

aspect  of  that  chancel  is  no  longer  ancient ; 

c 


34  TlIK    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH. 

it  is  new.  Tlie  altar  has  been  moved  from 
its  place  against  the  east  wall,  beneath  the 
great  window,  and  has  been  elevated  upon 
a  double  pedestal.  The  floor  around  it  has 
been  paved  with  encaustic  tiles,  of  hideous 
brown  and  yellow.  Almost  all  the  mural 
tablets  upon  the  north  and  south  w^alls  have 
been  can-ied  away,  and  they  may  now  be 
found  dispersed  in  the  transepts,  while  their 
place  is  to  be  filled  with  a  broad  expanse  of 
wooden  panels,  extending  from  the  backs  of 
the  miserere  stalls  upward  to  the  sills  of  the 
windows.  The  stalls  themselves  have  been 
repaired  —  but  this  was  necessary,  because 
the  wooden  foundations  of  them  had  become 
much  decayed.  And,  finally,  the  stone 
screens  that  filled  half  of  the  window  back 
of  Shakespeare's  monument  and  half  of  the 
window  back  of  the  busts  of  Judith  Combe 
and  her  lover  i  have  been  removed.  The 
resultant  effect  —  which  would  be  excellent 
in  a  modern  hotel  but  which  is  detestable 

1  Judith  Combe  died  in  August  1649,  — just  prior 
to  ber  purposed  marriage,  —  "  in  ye  arraes  of  him 
who  most  entirely  loved  and  was  beloved  of  her, 
even  to  ye  very  death."  She  belonged,  no  doubt,  to 
the  family  of  John-a-Corabe,  who  died  July  10, 1014, 
and  whose  torab  is  at  the  north  side  of  the  chancel 
window  of  the  Shakespeare  church.  The  tomb  at 
the  south  side  is  that  of  James  Kendal,  1751. 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH.  35 

here  —  is  the  effect  of  enterprise  and  nov- 
elty. The  pervading  air  is  that  of  the 
new  broom  and  the  modern  improvements. 
Those  improvements,  no  doubt,  are  fine  ; 
but  if  ever  there  was  a  place  on  earth  where 
they  are  inappropriate  that  place  is  the 
Shakespeare  church.  They  suit  well  with 
it  as  a  place  of  ecclesiastical  ritual,  and  if 
the  church  were  merely  that  nobody  would 
gi-eatly  care  even  if  it  were  made  as  bright 
as  a  brass  band.  But  since  it  is  the  literary 
shrine  of  the  world  no  one  who  appreciates 
its  value  can  fail  to  regret  that  the  ruthless 
hand  of  uinovation  has  been  permitted  to 
degrade  it,  in  any  degree  whatever,  to  the 
level  of  the  commonplace. 

When  Dean  Balsall  (obiit  1491)  built 
the  chancel  of  that  church,  about  four 
hundred  years  ago  (1480),  he  placed  it 
against  a  little  stone  building,  the  remnant 
of  an  ancient  monastery  —  as  good  antiqua- 
rian scholars  believe  —  which  was  long  used 
as  the  priest's  study  and  under  which  was 
a  charnel  house  or  crypt.  [A  great  mass 
of  human  bones  was  removed  from  that 
crypt  about  1886,  and  buried  in  a  pit  in  the 
churchyard.]  The  stone  screen  in  the 
lower  half  of  the  Shakespeare  window  was 
necessary  as  a  part  of  the  sustaining  wall 


2,6  THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH. 

between  the  old  structure  and  the  new  one, 
and  later  it  was  found  useful  as  a  back- 
ground for  the  Shakespeare  monument. 
Against  that  screen  the  bust  of  the  poet 
was  placed  by  his  children  and  his  friends, 
and  as  they  saw  it  and  knew  it  and  left  it, 
so  it  should  have  been  preserved  and  per- 
petuated. So  until  this  period  it  has  re- 
mained; but  the  pilgrim  to  Stratford  church 
hereafter  will  never  see  the  bust  of  Shake- 
speare as  it  was  seen  by  his  daughters.  A 
link  that  bound  us  to  the  past  has  been 
severed  and  no  skill  of  man  can  now  avail 
to  restore  it.  Back  of  the  bust  has  been 
placed  a  stained  window,  commemorative 
of  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  the  renowned 
Shakespeare  scholar.  This  was  put  in  on 
July  27,  1891,  late  in  the  afternoon  ;  and 
that  same  night  it  was  my  fortune  to  have 
a  view  of  it,  from  within  and  from  without. 
The  light  of  the  gloaming  had  not  yet 
faded.  The  bell-ringers  were  at  practice  in 
the  tower,  and  the  sweet  notes  of  the  Blue 
Bells  of  Scotland  were  wafted  downward  in 
a  shower  of  silver  melody  upon  the  still  air 
of  haunted  chancel  and  darkening  nave. 
Enough  of  light  yet  lingered  to  display  the 
fresh  embellishment,  and  I  examined  it 
closely  and  viewed  it  for  a  long  time.     It 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHURCH .  yj 

is  exceedingly  ugly  —  being  prosaic  in  de- 
sign and  coarse  in  colour.  The  principal 
object  in  its  composition  is  the  head  of  a 
bull  which,  engirt  with  flames,  rests  upon 
a  heap  of  stones,  encircled  with  a  rivulet 
of  ultramarine  blue.  Upon  each  side,  in 
contrasted  groups,  stand  several  figures, 
two  or  three  of  them  visible  at  full  length, 
but  most  of  them  visible  only  in  part.  Of 
human  heads  the  picture  contams  eleven. 
The  chief  colours  are  blue,  purple,  bronze, 
scarlet,  and  gi-ay.  The  action  of  the  prm- 
cipal  figures  is  spirited  and  the  treatment  of 
the  faces  shows  artistic  skill  —  those  qual- 
ities of  charm  being  the  merits  of  the  work. 
As  a  memorial,  the  window  means  noth- 
ing, while  its  implied  reference  to  one  of 
the  stories  of  Jewish  history  is  completely 
miimportant.  The  inscription  is  from  the 
Bible:  "And  with  the  stones  he  built  an 
altar  in  the  name  of  the  Lord."  The  mean- 
ing of  this  is  figurative  and  it  is  reverent 
and  irreproachable.  Yet  the  observer  who 
reads  that  sentence  can  scarcely  repress  a 
smile  when  he  remembers  that  the  stones 
which  were  taken  from  the  Shakespeare 
window,  to  make  room  for  this  pretentious 
deformity,  now  form  a  channel  for  hot-air 
pipes  under  the  chancel  floor.     It  is  some- 


38  THE    SIIAKKSl'KAUK    (  lirKCII. 

tliiiii?,  however,  that  they  were  put  to  use, 
aud  not  treated  as  rubbish. 

The  necessity  for  saving  a  relic  liere  and 
there  seems  not  to  have  been  ignored.  The 
stone  reading-desk  that  long  adorned  this 
church  was  sold  to  a  stone-mason  in  the 
Warwick  road  ;  the  top  of  the  stone  pulpit 
was  thrown  away  ;  but  the  broken  and 
battered  font,  at  which  possibly  the  poet 
was  baptized,  has  been  placed  upon  the 
pillar  that  formerly  supported  the  stone 
pulpit,  and  this  structure  may  now  be  seen 
in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  nave.  There 
also  have  been  placed  the  three  carved  can- 
opies of  stone  that  formerly  impended  over 
the  sedalia  in  the  chapel  of  Thomas  a' 
Becket,  —  now  occupied  by  the  organ 
works.  In  the  south  transept  stand  two 
large  gravestones,  the  memorials  of  former 
vicars,  which  were  removed  from  the  chan- 
cel—  where  they  ought  to  have  been  left. 
The  lately  discovered  (1890)  gravestone  of 
Judith  Combe  has  been  placed  in  the  chan- 
cel floor,  beneath  her  bust.  In  making 
repairs,  the  vault  of  Dean  Balsall,  which  is 
close  to  that  of  Shakespeare,  was  broken 
open,  and  it  was  inspected  if  not  ex- 
plored —  but  the  remains  were  not  dis- 
turbed.    Let  us  be  properly  thankful  for 


THE    SHAKESPEARE    CHLIiCH.  39 

SO  much  forbearance.  The  time  was  when 
the  present  vicar  of  Stratford,  Rev.  George 
Arbuthnot,  gave  his  consent  that  the  grave 
of  Shakespeare  might  be  opened  ;  i  and  there 
are  uneasy  spirits  still  extant  whom  inquis- 
itive curiosity  would  quickly  impel  to  that 
act  of  desecration.  Whatever  remnant  sui'- 
vives,  therefore,  of  the  spirit  of  reverence 
in  the  ecclesia^stical  authority  of  Stratford 
ought  to  be  prized  and  cherished. 

1  Readers  -who  wish  to  know  why  it  is  thought  by 
some  people  that  the  grave  of  Shakespeare  ought  to 
he  explored  will  find  dubious  reasons  set  forth  in  a 
curious  and  interesting  book  called  Shakespeare's 
Bones,  written  by  C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.,  1883.  Dr. 
Ingleby  has  collected  raanj'  striking  facts  with  regard 
to  the  explorations  of  other  hallowed  tombs.  He 
appears  to  think  it  probable  that  the  relics  of  Shake- 
speare have  already  been  rifled  :  but  this  is  conject- 
ure. His  assertion  that  a  fresh  stone  was  laid  over 
Shakespeare's  grave  not  much  more  than  fifty  years 
ago  is  not  supported  by  any  authority  that  I  can  find. 


4.0  A    STUAiroitl)    CIIKONICLK 


IV. 


A    STRATFORD   CMKONICLE, 

THE  old  Guild  Hall  and  Grammar  Schoo) 
of  Stratford  is  to  be  restored.  This 
good  work  was  begun  in  1891  by  Charles 
Edward  Flower,  the  chief  benefactor  of 
Shakespeare's  town.  The  exterior  of  that 
building  was  covered  with  plaster  in  1786. 
It  is  purposed  to  remove  the  plaster  and 
expose  the  ancient  timbers,  whereby  the 
picturesque  aspect  of  the  structure  will 
be  greatly  enhanced.  The  building,  how- 
ever, will  not  be  altered ;  it  will  only 
be  relieved  of  disfig-urements  that  were 
foisted  upon  it  in  comparatively  recent 
times.  Those  disfigurements  include  the 
panelling  of  the  interior,  beneath  which,  no 
doubt,  will  be  discovered  some  remains  of 
antique  decoration.  At  the  south  end  of 
the  hall  traces  have  already  been  observed 
of  what  may  once  have  been  a  fresco  of  the 
Crucifixion.  On  the  walls  of  the  council 
chamber,  now  occupied  by  the  head-master 


A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE.  4I 

of  the  Grammar  School,  two  frescoes  of 
large  roses  were  recently  discovered — em- 
blems that  possibly  were  placed  there  to  com- 
memorate the  happy  ending  of  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  in  August  1485,  three  years 
after  the  formal  foundation  of  the  school  of 
Thomas  Jolyffe.i  One  interesting  relic  of 
the  Shakespeare  period,  and  indeed  of  a 
much  earlier  period,  must  be  sacrificed  — 
the  cottage,  in  the  rear  of  the  hall,  which 
is  known  as  the  schoolmaster's  house,  and 
in  which  lived  Walter  Roche, "^  who  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  Shakespeare's  teacher. 
That  cottage  has  greatly  suffered  beneath 
the  ravages  of  time,  and  it  is  now  a  total 
wreck.     The  chapel  of  the  Guild  needs  res- 

1  The  Rev.  Mr.  Laffan  says  that  the  school  existed 
in  embryo  as  early  as  1412,  and  that  a  new  house  for 
its  accoraruodation  was  erected  by  the  Guild  of  the 
Holy  Cross  in  1427.  The  estate  of  the  Guild  was 
confiscated  by  Henry  VHI.,  but  the  school  was  re- 
established by  Edward  VI.  in  1553,  and  since  that 
time  it  has  been  called  The  King's  New  School,  or 
King  Edward  VI.  Grammar  School.  The  build- 
ing was  repaired  and  decorated  in  1568.  The  boy 
Shakespeare,  it  is  believed,  began  to  attend  the 
school  in  1571. 

-  The  signature  of  "Walter  Roche,  exceedingly 
rare,  is  on  a  deed  dated  1578,  relative  to  a  tenement 
in  Ely  street,  Hereford,  preserved  in  the  astonishing 
and  precious  collection  made  by  the  late  J.  O.  Halli- 
well-Phillipps. 


42  A    STHATFOIU)    CIIUOXICLE. 

toration  and  probably  soon  will  receive  it ; 
but  when  that  sacred  edifice  is  touched  the 
most  reverent  care  will  be  taken  to  preserve 
unchanged  the  aspect  of  venerable  majesty 
that  long  has  made  it  one  of  the  most  im- 
pressive churches  in  England.  The  clergy- 
man who  presides  over  the  Guild  chapel  is 
the  head- master  of  the  Grammar  School,  the 
Kev.  R.  S.  De  Courcy  Laffan, — a  scholar, 
a  Shakespearean,  a  man  of  feeling  and 
taste  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  no  desecration 
will  be  permitted  by  him.  The  church  of 
Shakespeare's  sepulchre  has  been  marred. 
The  church  associated  with  his  school-days 
will  be  scrupulously  preserved. 

Joseph  Skipsey,  the  Newcastle  poet,  who 
in  the  summer  of  1880  succeeded  Miss 
INFaria  Chataway  as  custodian  of  the  Shake- 
speare Birthplace,  resigned  that  office  and 
withdrew  from  it  in  October  1891.  No 
true  successor  to  the  Chataway  sisters  has 
been  found,  or  is  likely  to  be  found,  for  the 
office  of  custodian  of  that  venerable  house. 
The  Chataway  sisters  retired  from  their 
post  in  June  1880,  after  seventeen  years 
of  service.  The  elder,  Miss  Maria  Chata- 
way, who  officially  held  the  place,  was  over 
seventy-eight  years  old  ;  the  younger,  Miss 
Caroline  Chataway,  her  assistant,  v/as  sev- 


A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE.  43 

enty-six.  It  was  Miss  Caroline  who  usually 
escorted  the  visitor  through  the  principal 
rooms,  and  who  told,  in  such  a  quaintly 
characteristic  way,  the  story  of  the  building 
as  a  relic  of  Shakespeare  days  :  and  it  seems 
not  likel}^  that  anybody  else  will  ever  tell 
the  tale  so  well.  The  Chataway  sisters,  on 
leaving  the  Shakespeare  Birthplace,  took  up 
their  residence  in  a  cottage  in  the  War- 
wick road.  Miss  Maria  Chataway  died  on 
January-  31,  1891. 

The  trustees  of  the  Shakespeare  Birth- 
place were  authorized  by  an  act  of  Par- 
liament, March  16,  1891,  to  use,  for  the 
purchase  of  other  Shakespeare  property, 
whatever  surplus  of  money  had  accumulated 
in  their  possession.  They  have  bought,  for 
£3000,  the  Anne  Hathaway  cottage,  which 
was  the  home  of  the  poet's  wife,  and  they 
Intend  to  buy  the  ]SIary  Arden  cottage,  at 
Wilmcote,  which  was  the  home  of  the  poet's 
mother.  Mrs.  Mary  Taylor  Baker  continues 
to  reside  in  the  Hathaway  house  and  to 
show  the  wainscot,  the  great  timbers,  the 
antique  bedstead,  the  dresser,  the  settle, 
and  the  fire-place  with  which  it  is  believed 
that  Shakespeare  and  his  Anne  were  long 
and  happily  familiar.  Mrs.  Baker's  pedigree, 
as  the  descendant  and  representative  of  the 


44 


A    STRATFOKI)    CIIKONICLK. 


Hathaway  family  of  Shakespeare's  time, 
is  set  down  as  follows  in  her  old  family 
Bible  :  — 


Susan  Hathawaj', 


William  Taylor, 


John  Hathaway  Taylor,    x 


Mary  Kemp. 


William  Taylor. 


Elizabeth  Dobbin. 


Mary  Taylor. 


George  Baker. 


The  marriage  of  Mary  Taylor  to  George 
Baker  occurred  in  1840.  The  Susan  Hatha- 
way who  stands  at  the  head  of  this  pedigree 
is  understood  to  have  been  Anne  Hatha- 
way's  niece. 

There  are  credulous  persons  who  believe 
in  what  is  called  the  Ely  Palace  Portrait 
of  Shakespeare.  Mr.  Henry  Graves,  long 
noted  as  a  connoisseur  of  art  and  as  one  of 
the  best  authorities  in  the  kingdom  as  to 
such  a  matter,  believes  in  it  and  he  has 
been  heard  to  say  that  he  would  value  the 
painting  at  five  hundred  giiineas  or  at  any 
fancy  price   above   that  figure.     The   Ely 


A    STKATFOKD    CHKUXICLK.  45 

Palace  Portrait  of  Shakespeare  was  discov- 
ered in  London  and  was  bought  by  Bishop 
Turton,  of  Ely,  in  1846.  It  purports  to 
have  been  an  heirloom  in  a  family  resident 
in  Little  Britain,  and  personally  known  to 
Shakespeare,  and  the  story  of  it  declares 
that  it  was  painted  in  Shakespeare's  time. 
In  contour  and  expression  it  bears  some 
resemblance  to  the  Dreshout  likeness.  The 
face,  however,  is  thin  and  pale  and  the 
eyes  are  small.  In  ]May  1891  this  portrait 
was,  for  the  first  time  in  many  years,  taken 
out  of  its  frame,  in  order  that  the  glass 
might  be  cleaned,  and  then  was  observed 
the  following  inscription  upon  the  left-hand 
upper  comer  of  the  canvas:  "AE.  39.  X 
lOOo."  Its  existence  had  not  before  been 
known  at  the  Birthplace,  but  subsequent 
inquiry  has  ascertained  that  the  inscription 
was  known  to  Bishop  Turton  when  he 
bought  the  picture,  and  doubtless  it  had 
an  effect  upon  his  judgment  of  its  authen- 
ticity. The  Ely  Palace  Portrait  is  preserved 
at  the  Birthplace,  where  it  is  an  interesting 
feature  in  the  collection  that  was  made  for 
the  museum  department  by  William  Oakes 
Hmit  and  J.  ().  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

Among  Shakespeare  relics  that  long  sur- 
vived in  Stratford,  but  now  have  disap- 


46  A    STHATFOKD    CHRONICLE. 

peared,  was  the  old  house  of  Avoubank. 
That  building  stood  next  to  the  principal 
gate  of  Trinity  churchyard,  on  land  that 
now  forms  part  of  the  estate  of  Charles 
Edward  Flower,  and  it  was  designated,  in 
the  town  records,  "  the  House  of  St.  Mary 
in  old  town."  Thomas  Green,  who  has 
been  variously  styled  "the  poet's  cousin" 
and  "the  poet's  intimate  friend,"  — he  was 
town-clerk  of  Stratford  from  1614  to  1617,  — 
lived  there,  and  accordingly  it  is  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  the  house  may  have  been 
one  of  Shakespeare's  habitual  resorts.  Each 
room  in  it  had  a  name.  One  was  called 
"the  churchyard  room";  one  "the  bee- 
hive "  ;  one  "  the  end  "  ;  one  "  the  middle  " ; 
and  one  "the  bird's  nest." 

Another  Shakespeare  relic  that  has  dis- 
appeared is  the  old  INIarket  Cross  of  Strat- 
ford. That  structure,  often  seen  by  Shake- 
speare, was  surely  as  old  as  the  early  time 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  It  stood  close  by  the 
southwest  corner  of  High  street  and  Wood 
street  and  was  apparently  used  for  a 
market.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Common 
Council  of  Stratford,  held  August  2,  1704, 
it  was  "agreed  that  the  house  at  the  Cross, 
late  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Robert  Man- 
der,  be  wholly  taken  down  and  laid  open  to 


A    STRATFORD    CHROXICLE.  47 

the  road  ;  that  Mr,  Taylor  take  down  the 
house  and  be  careful  to  put  the  materials 
by  for  the  use  of  the  corporation."  So 
said,  so  done.  The  Cross  was  taken  down 
and  removed  in  one  day,  —  Saturday,  August 
11, 1821,  —  and  its  base  was  finally  placed  in 
the  centre  w^alk  of  the  Shakespeare  Birth- 
place garden.  The  foundation  stone  of  the 
ugly  market-house  now  standing  at  the  junc- 
tion of  Wood  street  and  Henley  street  was 
laid  by  George  Morris,  ]Mayor  of  Stratford, 
on  the  coronation  day  of  George  IV. 

Charles  Edward  Flower's  Memorial  thea- 
tre edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays  includes 
the  thirty-seven  plays  and  fills  eight  volumes. 
This  edition  is  intended  equally  for  the  actor 
and  the  reader.  Each  play  is  printed  in 
full,  but  while  the  text  that  is  spoken  on  the 
stage  is  given  in  brevier,  the  passages  that 
are  usually  omitted  are  given  in  minion. 
The  text  is  genuine,  and  the  editorial 
work  has  been  done  with  scholarship,  taste, 
veneration,  and  patient  zeal.  In  several 
cases  Mr.  Flower  was  obliged  to  make  new 
stage  versions  —  notably  in  those  of  The 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  TJie  Comedy  of  Errors,  and  the  first 
part  of  Henry  VI.  Tliose  new  versions 
have  been  acted  at  the  Memorial  theatre. 


48  A    STHATKOKl)    CIIKONICLE. 

and  without  exception  they  were  successful. 
The  edition  was  printed  by  George  Boyden, 
at  the  Stratford  Herald  press. 

The  library  of  the  Shakespeare  Memo- 
rial now  contains  02(50  volumes.  There  are 
230  English  editions  of  Shakespeare  in  that 
collection.  Among  the  relics  that  have  been 
obtained  are  the  manuscript  of  the  late 
Charles  Mackay's treatise  on  Obscnre  Words 
in  Shakespeare's  Plays,  and  a  human  skull 
that  was  used  as  "  Yorick's  skull,  the  king's 
jester,"  by  John  Philip  Kemble  and  by 
Kdnumd  Kean,  when  playing  Hamlet.  The 
store  of  relics  hi  Stratford  is  naturally  con- 
siderable, and  many  of  them  are  of  great 
Interest.  An  uncommonly  line  autograph 
of  Kobert  Burns  is  owned  by  Mr.  William 
Hutchings,  of  this  town,  and  the  original 
manuscript  of  the  letter  that  Dr.  Johnson 
addressed  (June  26,  1777)  to  Dr.  Dodd, 
the  forger,  then  under  sentence  of  death, 
is  one  of  the  possessions  of  Alderman 
Bird. 

Robert  Bell  Wheler,i  the  historian  of 
Stratford,  was  buried  in  Trinity  churchyard, 
together  with  several  of  his  relatives.     We 

'^  An  autograph  letter  from  Robert  Bell  Wheler 
has  come  into  my  possession,  wliich  is  interesting 
not  only  as  a  relic  of  the  historian  but  because  of  a 


A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE.  49 

are  soon  forgotten  when  we  are  dead, —  as  in- 
timated by  poor  old  Rip  Van  Winkle,  —  and 
the  burial-place  of  the  venerable  antiquary 
is  fast  hastening  to  decay.  The  gi-aves  of 
the  Wheler  family  are  enclosed  within  a  tall 
iron  fence  and  over  them  the  grass  grows 
thick  and  wild.  A  double  stone  marks 
the  spot,  on  which  is  the  following  in- 
scription -.  — 


reference  that  it  makes  to  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished names  in  recent  American  history.  It  is 
addressed  to  the  antiquary  John  Gough  Nichols, 
F.S.A.,  Xo,  25  Parliament-st.,  London. 

'•  Dear  Sir ;  Mr  Sumner,  an  American  gentleman 
to  whom  I  was  last  summer  introduced  hy  a  friend 
of  his  residing  in  this  place,  wishes  to  inspect  York- 
ington's  Pilgrimage,  Mr.  S  having,  as  I  understood, 
visited  some  of  the  places  mentioned  in  it.  I  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  giving  him  your  address,  which 
I  trust  you  will  pardon,  and  I  shall  feel  obliged  by 
your  allowing  him  to  inspect  the  MS.  or  the  copy, 
but  of  course  not  to  take  either  of  them  out  of  your 
possession.  And  should  he  desire  to  make  any  ex- 
tracts, I  leave  that  to  your  wishes,  as  I  hardly  know 
what  use  you  may  require  to  make  of  the  Journal. 
When  you  have  done  with  the  MS.  I  shall  be  happy 
ill  receiving  it  back,  with  the  copy=  And  I  remain, 
dear  sir,  very  truly  yours, 

"  Robert  Bell  Wueler. 

"  Stratford-upon-Avon,  31st  Deer.,  1842. 

"  Mr.  Sumner  dates  from  38  Duke  St.,  St. 
James's." 

D 


50  A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE. 

In  intMuory  of 

Robert  Wheler,  Gent., 

Who  died 

29th  Auojust,  1819, 

Aged  77  years. 

Also  of  his  daughter, 

Elizabeth  Wheler, 

Who  died  29th  May,  1852, 

Aged  72  years. 

In  memory  of 

Robert  Bell  Wheler 

(Only  son  of  Robert  Wheler) 

Who  died  15th  July,  1857, 

Aged  72  years. 

Also  of  Ann  Wheler, 

Daughter  of  Robert  Wheler, 

Who  died  13th  Sept.,  1870, 

Aged  87  years. 

The  historian's  mother  died  at  Quiiiton 
and  was  buried  in  the  churchyard  of  tliat 
place,  on  the  southeast  side  of  the  church  — 
the  stone  that  marks  her  sepulchre  being 
inscribed  as  follows  :  — 

In  memory  of 

Elizabeth  Wheler, 

AVife  of  Robert  AVlieler, 

Of  Stratford-upon-Avon. 

She  died  13  April,  1786, 

Aged  29. 

Making  a  visit  to  the  old  city  of  Glouces- 


A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE.  5 1 

ter,  it  was  my  privilege  to  see  the  Shake- 
speare relics  that  are  preserved  there,  —  in 
a  dwelling  in  Westgate  street,  occupied  by 
the  family  of  Fletcher,  dealers  in  fire-arms. 
Mrs.  E.  Fletcher,  who  died  in  1890,  at  an 
advanced  age,  claimed  to  be  a  collateral  de- 
scendant from  Shakespeare,  and  she  always 
strenuously  maintained  that  those  memo- 
rials of  the  poet,  a  Jug  and  a  Cane,  had 
been  handed  down,  through  succeeding  gen- 
erations, in  the  family,  from  Shakespeare's 
time.  The  tradition  declares  that  Shake- 
speare once  owned  and  used  those  articles, 
and  the  religious  care  with  which  they  have 
been  guarded  is  a  proof  that  the  tradition 
has  not  lacked  power.  Each  of  them  is  en- 
closed in  a  case  of  wood  and  glass,  and  I 
found  the  cases  in  a  locked  room.  The  Jug 
is  made  of  stone-ware,  and  is  of  a  simple 
and  usual  form,  ha^ing  panelled  sides  with 
figures  embossed  upon  them  ;  and  it  is  sur- 
mounted with  a  metal  lid.  The  Cane  is  a 
Malacca  joint,  fully  four  feet  long.  As  it 
was  enclosed  I  could  not  take  it  into  my 
hands  for  close  examination,  but  I  saw  that 
it  is  such  a  cane  as  was  customarily  carried 
in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  I. 
Miss  Fletcher,  who  showed  those  relics, 
spoke  of  them  with  veneration,  and  she  dis- 


52  A    STRATFORD    CIIRONICLK. 

played  a  large  box  of  papers,  both  written 
and  printed,  relative  to  their  history. 
"They  are  not  now  for  sale,"  she  said, 
"but  they  will  be  hereafter."  They  have 
several  times  been  exhibited  in  public,  and 
they  are  always  shown  to  the  wanderer  who 
will  take  the  trouble  to  inquire  for  them. 
An  effigy  of  Shakespeare  looks  down  upon 
them  from  the  wall  of  the  little  parlour  in 
which  they  are  enshrined  ;  and  it  was  easy, 
when  standing  in  their  presence  —  in  the 
ancient  and  romantic  city  of  Gloucester, 
with  haunting  historic  shapes  on  every  hand 
—  to  credit  their  sanctity  as  objects  that 
Shakespeare  knew  and  touched. 


DEATH    OF    CHARLES    EDWARD    FLOWER. 

May  10,  1892.  —  The  death  of  Charles 
Edward  Flower  is  a  bereavement  to  the 
town  of  Stratford-upon-Avon  and  it  deprives 
the  Shakespeare  fraternity  of  one  of  its  best 
friends.  Mr.  Flower  was  a  native  of  Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon, and  he  grew  up  there  to  be 
one  of  its  most  respected  citizens.  lie  loved 
and  venerated  the  name  of  Shakespeare  ; 
he  was  solicitous  for  the  credit  of  his  native 
place  ;  and  he  wished  that  Stratford  might 
always  prove  worthy  of  its  association  with 


A    STRATFORD    CHRONICLE.  53 

the  first  poet  of  the  world.  He  possessed 
large  wealth  and  he  used  it  freely  for  the 
honour  and  advancement  of  his  town.  He 
was  the  founder  of  the  Shakespeare  Memo- 
rial ;  he  gave  the  land  on  which  it  stands 
and  also  the  greater  part  of  the  money 
that  built  it,  and  he  gave  and  improved  and 
beautified  the  gardens  by  which  it  is  en- 
closed. The  corner-stone  of  the  Memorial 
was  laid  on  April  23,  1877,  and  the  build- 
ing was  opened,  with  a  performance  of 
3Iuch  Ado  About  Nothing,  on  April  23, 
1879.  Mr.  Flower  was  constantly  adding 
books  to  its  library.  One  of  the  gifts  that 
he  had  in  store  for  it  was  a  set  of  the  four 
folios  of  Shakespeare.  He  edited  the  Me- 
morial edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  He 
was  active  in  every  good  work  in  Stratford, 
and  he  was  respected  and  beloved  by  the 
whole  community.  One  of  the  last  of  his 
labours  was  the  restoration  of  the  Guild 
Hall  and  Grammar  School  of  Stratford. 
That  work  of  restoration  will  go  on,  and 
Stratford  will  soon  possess  another  object 
of  antique  beauty.  Whenever  a  good  deed 
was  to  be  done  his  liberality  never  halted. 
Hundreds  of  Americans  who  have  visited 
Stratford  will  remember  his  hospitality  and 
recall  with  pleasure  his  kindness,  his  cheer- 


54  A    ST  HAT  FORD    CH  HON  I  CLE. 

fill  sympathy,  .and  the  refinements  and 
graces  of  his  beautiful  home.  Not  anywhere 
in  the  world  remains  a  more  devoted  wor- 
shipper of  Shakespeare,  a  more  practical 
friend  of  literature  and  art,  a  more  public- 
spirited  citizen,  or  a  man  of  more  inflexible 
principle  and  sterling  integrity.  Under  an 
austere  demeanour  Mr.  Flower  veiled  with- 
out being  able  to  conceal  tenderness  of  heart, 
gentleness  of  temperament,  quick  apprecia- 
tion of  merit  and  of  goodness,  and  a  fine 
sense  of  humour.  lie  left  no  children. 
Ilis  widow  —  in  whom  his  virtues  were 
reflected  and  increased,  and  in  whom  his 
goodness  survives  —  possesses  in  her  be- 
reavement a  sympathy  too  deep  for  words. 
Mr.  Flower  was  born  February  3,  1830, 
and  he  was  educated  at  the  Grammar 
School  of  Stratford  —  the  school  of  Shake- 
speare. In  1852  he  married  Sarah,  daughter 
of  Mr.  Peter  Martineau,  of  Iliglibury,  Mid- 
dlesex. He  passed  his  whole  life  in  his 
native  town.  He  died  suddenly,  at  War- 
wick, on  May  3,  1802,  and  was  buried  on 
May  7,  in  the  Stratford  cemetery. 

"  Your  cause  of  sorrow 
Must  not  be  measured  by  his  worth,  for  then 
It  hath  no  end." 


FROM  LONDON'  TO  DOVER.      55 


V. 

FROM    LOXDOX    TO    DOVER. 

CALAIS,  France,  August  31,  1891.  —It 
is  early  morning  in  London.  The  rain 
has  been  falling  all  night,  and  in  the  gray 
of  the  dawn  it  continues  to  fall  —  not  now 
in  showers  but  intermittently  and  in  a  cold 
drizzle.  The  sky  is  dark  and  sullen,  and 
through  the  humid,  misty  air  the  towers 
and  spires  of  the  majestic  city  loom  shadow- 
like, fantastic,  and  strange.  Pools  of  water 
stand  here  and  there  in  the  streaming,  slip- 
pery streets,  which  are  almost  devoid 
equally  of  vehicles  and  pedestrians.  The 
shop-keepers  of  Kensington  have  not  yet 
awakened,  and  as  my  cab  rolls  through  the 
solitarv'  highways  I  see  that  only  in  a  few 
places  have  the  shutters  been  taken  from 
the  windows.  Victoria  is  presently  reached, 
where,  at  this  early  hour,  only  a  few  peo- 
ple are  astir,  so  that  the  confusion  and 
clamour  of  British  travel  have  not  yet  be- 
gun.    Soon  our  train  rumbles  out  of  the 


56  FROM    LONIXVN    TO    DOVER. 

Station  and  we  feel  that  all  personal  respon^ 
sibility  has  been  dropped  and  that  we  have 
yielded  to  fate  —  at  least  till  we  reach 
])over.  The  skies  begin  to  brighten  as  we 
cross  the  Thames,  while,  gently  ruffled  by 
the  morning  breeze,  the  broad  expanse  of 
the  river  shows  like  a  sheet  of  wrinkled 
steel.  At  first  we  speed  among  long  rows 
of  houses,  all  built  alike  —  the  monotonous 
suburban  dwellings  of  towns  such  as  AVands- 
worth  and  Clapham,  with  their  melancholy 
little  gardens,  all  dripping  with  recent  rain, 
in  which  marigolds  are  beginning  to  bloom, 
and  great,  heavy  sunflowers  hang  their  dis- 
consolate heads.  Nothinghere seems  joyous 
except  the  grass,  but  this  has  profited  by  the 
pertinacious  rain  and  is  richer  and  greener 
than  ever.  Presently  the  gardens  and 
dwellings  grow  more  opulent.  The  wind 
rises  with  the  advance  of  day  and  soon  the 
dense  foliage  about  the  hill  and  vale  of 
Heme  stirs  and  rustles  in  the  gladness  of 
its  careless  life.  Now  begins  the  gentle 
pageant  of  English  rural  scenery  —  that 
blending  of  soft  colour  and  quaint,  delicate 
object,  the  like  of  which  is  nowhere  to  be 
found  except  in  England.  Every  traveller 
will  remember,  and  will  rejoice  to  remem- 
ber, the  elements  of  that  delicious  picture  — 


FROM    LONDOX    TO    DOVER.  ^-J 

the  open,  far-reaching  stretches  of  pasture, 
level,  green,  and  fragrant ;  the  beds  of 
many-coloured  flowers,  flashing  on  emerald 
lawns  ;  the  fleecy  sheep,  the  sleek  horses, 
and  the  comely  cattle,  grouped  or  scattered 
in  the  fields,  some  feedmg,  some  ruminant, 
some  in  motion,  and  some  asleep  ;  the  deep, 
lush  grass  and  clover  ;  the  nurseries  of  fruit- 
trees  ;  the  flying  glimpses  of  gray  church- 
towers  and  of  shining  streams  ;  and  over 
all  the  frequent  flights  of  solemn  rooks  and 
frolicsome  starlings  that  seem  at  times 
almost  to  make  a  darkness  in  the  air. 

Soon  the  opulent,  aristocratic,  facade  of 
ancient  Dulwich  College  —  at  once  the 
memorial  and  the  sepidchre  of  Shake- 
speare's friend  Edward  Alleyne  —  smiles 
upon  us  across  the  meadows  and  witches 
us  with  thoughts  of  a  memorable  past. 
Leaving  Dulwich  we  run  through  a  long 
tunnel  and  in  a  few  moments,  dashing 
across  the  plain  of  Penge,  we  perceive  the 
lofty  tower  and  Olympian  fabric  of  the 
Crystal  Palace  shining  on  the  hills  of  Syden- 
ham. This  is  a  fertile,  rolling  country,  much 
diversified  with  hill  and  valley.  All  around 
us  the  banks  are  scarlet  with  innumerable 
standards  of  the  gorgeous  poppy  and  golden 
with  flowers  of  the  colt's  foot,  and  many 


58      FROM  LONDON  TO  DOVER. 

red-roofed  farin-houses  are  moiuentarily 
visible  in  the  green  depths  of  lofty  groves. 
Our  way  lies  through  hop  fields  now,  and 
the  air  is  delicious  with  the  zestful  perfume 
of  their  blossoms.  We  traverse  beds  of 
wild  fern  and  of  many  kinds  of  underwoods, 
and  in  fields  that  are  divided  by  hedges  of 
lovely  hawthorn  we  see  many  sheaves  of 
the  yellow  harvest.  Quaint  little  villages 
are  passed,  each  group  of  cottages  nestled 
around  its  gray  old  church,  like  children 
clustered  at  a  parent's  knee.  The  door- 
yards  are  gay  with  marigolds.  There  are 
broad  patches  of  clover  in  copious,  fragrant 
bloom,  and  on  the  distant  horizon  the  green 
hills,  crowned  with  dark  groves,  loom 
gloomily  under  straggling  clouds.  The 
wind  blows  chill,  the  sky  takes  on  a  cold, 
silvery  hue,  and  innumerable  starlings,  fly- 
ing low,  look  like  black  dots  upon  the  dome 
of  heaven.  Our  speed  is  great,  and  we 
leave  long  trails  of  thick,  smoky  vapour  that 
melts  through  the  trees  and  hedges  or  seems 
to  sink  into  the  ground.  At  Sole  a  lovely 
rural  region  is  opened  and  the  sky  begins 
to  smile.  Yonder  on  the  hillside  a  vener- 
able church-tower  shows  its  grim  parapet. 
In  the  opposite  quarter  there  are  hills,  thick 
wooded  or  capped  with  sheaves  of  the  har- 


FROM  LONDON  TO  DOVER.      59 

vest  —  sadly  marred,  this  autumn,  by  the 
rough  weather  of  as  drear  an  August  as 
England  has  known.  All  the  same  this 
scene  keeps  its  picturesque  beauty  —  the 
peace  of  deep  vales  m  which  boughs  wave, 
streams  murmur,  and  stately  rooks  are 
seeking  their  food  ;  the  peace  of  old  red  or 
gray  farm-houses  veiled  with  ixj  and  nestled 
among  flowers.  The  banks  of  the  ]\Iedway 
are  near  at  hand  and  across  the  crystal 
bosom  of  that  beautiful  river  rises  the  black 
ruin  of  Rochester  castle,  flecked  with  lichen 
and  hamited  by  hosts  of  doves,  and  near  it 
the  pinnacled  tower  of  Rochester  cathedral, 
romantic  in  itself  but  made  more  romantic 
by  the  art  of  the  great  genius  who  loved  it 
"so  well.  Here  Dickens  laid  the  scene  of 
his  exquisite  story  of  Edidn  Drood,  and 
not  far  away  from  this  spot  stands  the  old, 
lonely  house  of  Gadshill  in  which  he  died. 
The  little  to^n  of  Rochester  is  all  astir. 
The  wet,  red  roofs  of  its  cosy  dwellings 
glisten  in  the  welcome  though  transient 
sunshine,  and  on  some  of  those  houses 
great  mantles  of  green  \yj  sway  gently  in 
the  rising  wind.  The  river  is  full  of  ship- 
ping, —  small  craft  and  steamboats,  — and 
the  gaze  of  the  pilgrim  dwells  delighted  on 
brown  sails,   and  tapering  spars,  and  gay 


6o      FROM  LOXDOX  TO  DOVKK. 

smoke-stacks,  and  the  busy  little  boats  that 
seem  never  at  rest.  Not  many  views  in 
England  possess  such  animation  as  pervades 
the  spectacle  of  the  valley  of  the  Medway 
at  Kochester,  and  the  lover  of  Dickens 
may  well  look  upon  it  with  affection  and 
leave  it  with  regret. 

"We  dash  through  a  ravine  of  chalkstone 
now  and  have  a  fine  prospect  of  martial 
Chatham,  wduch  is  built  in  a  valley  but 
extends  up  the  side  of  the  adjacent  east- 
ward hill  ;  and  through  one  of  its  long 
highways  our  glance  follows  the  plunging 
flight  of  a  large  flock  of  frightened  sheep. 
At  Kew-Brompton  there  are  many  small 
gray  houses  and  there  is  a  great  profusion 
of  red  and  yellow  flowers.  A  wide  reach  o# 
glistening  water  is  presently  seen,  toward 
the  east  —  wdiich  is  the  Medway,  nearing 
the  sea.  Harvest  fields  extend  almost  to 
its  verge  and  the  country  is  level  for  miles 
—  a  marsh-land  intersected  with  channels 
and  pools.  Presently  we  come  again  into 
hop-fields  and  we  recognise  the  rich  and 
blooming  land  of  Kent.  At  Newington 
there  are  gloomier  skies  and  dashes  of  sud- 
den rain,  but  the  grass  is  thickly  strewn 
with  sumptuous  white  daisies,  and  the  pros- 
pect of  a  noble  antique  church,  with  plen- 


FROM    LONDON    TO    DOVER.  6 1 

teous  moss  and  lichen  on  its  triple-gabled 
roof  and  with  its  square  tower  bosomed  in 
foliage,  would  make  any  gazer  forget  the 
weather  and  cast  all  discomfort  to  the 
winds.  Speeding  past  Sittingbourne  you 
note  the  breezy  activity  of  that  thrifty 
place,  the  newly  built  manufactories,  the 
tall,  smoking  chimneys,  the  fine  mill,  and 
the  miller's  still  finer  dwellmg  —  so  close  to 
the  brink  of  his  great  pond  that  not  the  build- 
ing only  but  the  innumerable  flowers  that 
grow  around  it  are  reflected  in  the  broad, 
gleaming  pool.  This  sweet  picture  passes  in 
an  instant,  and  then,  under  rifts  of  blue  in  a 
sky  of  silver,  come  more  of  the  drenched 
sheaves  of  the  injured  harvest.  There  is  a 
vision  of  roads  that  are  full  of  mire ;  of  glow- 
ing hop-fields  ;  of  haystacks  and  thatched 
cottages  ;  of  distant  spires  peeping  out 
among  the  trees ;  of  windmills  on  the  hill- 
tops; of  harvesters  gathering  grain  ;  and  of 
happy  children  that  wave  a  greeting  from 
poppy-spangled  fields.  Faversham  now,  and 
across  the  green  levels,  far  away,  rise  the 
brown  sails  of  barges  and  of  other  little  ves- 
sels that  ply  the  neighbouring  sea.  Xear  at 
hand  the  green  hedges  are  full  of  white  and 
red  and  yellow  flowers,  and  many  sheep 
are  nibbling  in  the  pastures  or  gazing  with 


62      FROM  LONDON  TO  DOVER. 

a  comic  wooden  stare  at  our  flying  train. 
The  sky  continually  changes,  and  here  it  is  a 
dome  of  dark -gray  and  silver,  across  which, 
with  astonishing  speed,  thin  fleeces  of  rain- 
cloud  career  on  the  stormy  wind.  We  are 
come  into  a  beautiful  valley,  green  on  all 
sides  and  softly  diversified  with  windmills, 
cottages,  little  gray  churches,  massive  cones 
of  golden  hay,  clumps  of  larch,  lines  of 
delicate  silver  birch,  and  large  masses  of 
fragrant  hops  —  the  thick  vines  of  which 
hang  so  near  that  we  can  almost  clutch 
their  pendant  blossoms  as  we  pass.  A  veil 
of  dim  sunshine  is  cast  over  this  verdurous 
scene,  and  as  the  vale  broadens  you  may 
perceive  a  dazzling  variety  of  objects  — 
manor-house  and  cottage,  grove  and  plain, 
fields  that  are  brown  and  fields  that  are 
yellow,  thin  white  roads  that  wind  away 
over  hill-tops  and  are  lost  in  the  distance, 
a  bright  and  rapid  stream  that  flashes 
through  the  meadow,  and,  grandly  crown- 
ing the  pageant  and  consecrating  its  beauty, 
the  stately  and  splendid  towers  of  Canter- 
bury cathedral.  There  they  stand,  majes- 
tic and  glorious,  with  a  thousand  years  of 
history  upon  their  hallowed  battlements, 
serene,  predominant,  and  changeless  amid 
the  changes  of  a  transitory  and  vanishing 


FROM  LONDON  TO  DOVER.      63 

world.  Nothing  of  architectural  creation 
can  excel  in  charm  the  spiritual  loveliness 
of  that  cathedral.  York  and  St.  Paul's  and 
Lincoln  surpass  it  in  massive  grandeur ; 
Gloucester  surpasses  it  in  romance  ;  Dur- 
ham is  more  rugged  and  more  savagely 
splendid ;  Westminster  is  more  rich  with 
poetic  association  and  with  ecclesiastical 
ornament ;  Ely  possesses  a  greater  variety 
of  blended  architectural  styles  and  of  eccen- 
tric character  ;  but,  travel  where  you  may, 
you  never  will  behold  a  church  more  com- 
pletely radiant  with  the  investiture  of 
celestial  sublimity.  It  won  my  heart  years 
ago,  and  no  one  of  its  magnificent  rivals 
has  ever  allured  me  from  its  shrine. 

There  is  no  pause.  Berkesbourne  flashes 
by  —  its  velvet  plains  slumbering  under  spa- 
cious elms  and  its  fields  of  silken  oat-grass 
blazing  with  poppies.  All  about  Adisham 
the  thatched  cottages  and  the  sheep  in  the 
pastures  make  a  pretty  picture  of  smiling 
content.  The  harvest  is  partly  mown  and 
partly  erect.  Books  and  small  birds  abound, 
and  there  are  many  patches  of  woodland 
near  by,  and  many  vacant  plains.  Now  and 
then  we  run  through  deep  ravines  in  the 
chalk.  The  country  is  hilly  as  we  approach 
the  sea,  and  on  the  gentle  acclivities,  h&re 


64  FliOM    LONDON    TO    DOVER. 

and  there,  is  seen  a  manor-house,  quaint 
with  gables  and  latticed  casements  and 
draped  with  ivy.  In  the  foreground  are 
fields  of  clover,  and  looking  beyond  those 
your  gaze  falls  upon  wooded  vales  in  which 
the  dark  sheen  of  the  copper-beach  shows 
boldly  against  the  green  of  the  elms.  A 
little  graveyard  gleams  for  a  moment  on 
the  hillside,  —  in  mute  token  that  Death 
also  has  his  part  in  these  scenes  of  fertile 
beauty,  —  and  then  we  flit  through  the  dark 
tunnel  and  come  slowly  to  a  pause  beneath 
the  noble  cliffs  of  Dover.  Nothing  seems 
changed  upon  this  romantic  shore  since 
those  far-distant  days  when  first  I  saw  it. 
The  sombre  castle  still  frowns  upon  its  crag. 
The  great  hillsides  are  solitary  in  the  bleak 
light.  The  little  cabin  and  the  signal-stand- 
ard keep,  as  of  old,  their  lonely  vigil  on 
the  wind-beaten  summit  of  the  Shakespeare 
cliff.  The  massive  stone  pier,  like  a  giant's 
arm,  stretches  into  the  sea  and  braves  its 
power  and  defies  its  wrath.  And  on  the 
vacant,  desolate  beach  the  endless  surges 
still  nuu'nuir  their  mysterious,  everlasting 
dirge  —  the  requiem  of  broken  vows,  and 
blighted  hope,  and  all  the  vain  and  futile 
ambitions,  passions,  and  sorrows  of  man- 
kind.    The  sea  is  wild,  as  our  bark  springs 


FROM  LONDON  TO  DOVER.      65 

into  its  embrace  ;  the  sky  is  full  of  white 
and  slate-coloured  clouds  broken  into  fre- 
quent rifts  of  blue  ;  and  the  distant  waves 
roll  up  in  great  purple  masses  crowned  with 
plumes  of  silver.  Many  shapes  of  sails  are 
visible  on  the  distant  horizon,  and  the  air 
is  so  clear  that  I  discern  at  the  same  mo- 
ment the  high  cliffs  of  Albion  and  the  low- 
lying  sandhills  of  France.  It  is  an  hour  of 
memory  and  of  thought ;  of  dreams  and  of 
visions ;  and  you  forget  the  common  life 
that  is  all  around  you,  —  the  sailors  at  their 
tasks,  the  vacant  chatter  of  the  tourists,  the 
clank  of  the  engines,  the  swirl  and  strife 
of  the  waters  and  the  winds,  —  to  muse  on 
old  imperial  battles  that  once  incarnadined 
these  seas,  and  to  gaze  on  the  ghostly  gal- 
leons of  the  Spanish  Armada,  the  pennons 
of  the  great  admirals  of  Spain  and  France 
and  Holland  and  England,  the  stately  ships 
of  Raleigh  and  Drake,  of  CollingAA'ood  and 
Rodney  and  Xelson,  and,  proudly  stream- 
ing on  the  blast,  that  flag  of  Britannia  which 
is  still  the  austere  emblem  of  human  free- 
dom, the  flag  that  has 

"  Braved,  a  thousand  years, 
The  battle  and  the  breeze." 


66  BEAUTIES    OF    FRANCE. 


VI. 

BEAUTIES    OF    FRAXCE. 

IT  was  a  beautiful  afternoon  in  summer 
when  first  I  saw  the  shores  of  France. 
The  channel,  a  distressful  water  when  rough, 
had  been  in  unusual  pleasure,  like  King 
Duncan  in  the  play,  so  that  "  observation 
with  extended  view,"  could  look  with  inter- 
est on  the  Norman  coast,  as  it  rose  into 
sight  across  the  surges.  That  coast  seemed 
like  the  Palisade  bank  of  the  Hudson  river, 
and  prompted  thoughts  of  home.  It  is  high 
and  precipitous  and  on  one  of  its  windy  hills 
a  little  chapel  is  perched,  in  picturesque 
loneliness,  east  of  the  stone  harbour  into 
which  the  arriving  steamer  glides.  At 
Dieppe,  as  at  most  of  the  channel  ports,  a 
long  pier  projects  into  the  sea,  and  this 
was  thronged  with  spectators,  as  the  boat 
steamed  to  her  moorings.  The  road  from 
Dieppe  to  Paris  passes  through  Rouen  and 
up  the  valley  of  the  Seine.  The  sky  that 
day  was  as  blue  and  sunny  as  ever  it  is  in 


BEAUTIES    OF    FRANCE.  67 

brilliant  America ;  the  air  was  soft  and 
cool ;  and  the  fields  of  Normandy  were 
lovely  with  rich  colour  and  generous  with 
abundance  of  golden  crops.  Now  and  then 
we  passed  httle  hamlets,  made  up  of  thatched 
cottages  clustered  around  a  tiny  church, 
with  its  sad,  quaint  place  of  graves.  Sheaves 
of  wheat  were  stacked  in  careless  piles  in 
the  meadows.  Rows  of  the  tall,  lithe  Lom- 
bardy  poplar  —  so  like  the  willowy  girls  of 
France  —  flashed  by,  and  rows  of  the  tremu- 
lous silver-leaved  maplC:  Sometimes  I  saw 
rich  bits  of  garden  ground,  gorgeous  with 
geraniums  and  with  many  of  the  wild-flowers, 
neglected,  for  the  most  part,  in  other  coun- 
tries, which  the  French  know  so  well  how 
to  cultivate  and  train.  In  some  fields  the 
reapers  were  at  work;  in  others  women 
were  guiding  the  plough  ;  in  others  the  sleek 
cattle  and  shaggy  .sheep  were  couched  in  re- 
pose or  busy  with  the  herbage  ;  and  through 
that  smiling  land  the  Seine  flowed  peacefully 
down,  shining  like  burnished  silver.  At 
Rouen  I  saw  the  round  tower  and  the  spires 
of  the  famous  cathedral  —  esteemed  one  of 
the  best  pieces  of  Gothic  architecture  in 
Europe ;  and  I  thought  of  Corneille,  who 
was  there  born,  and  of  Joan  of  Arc,  who 
was  there  burnt.     Just  beyond  Rouen,  on 


68  BEAUTIES    OK    FRANCE. 

the  east  bank  of  the  Seine,  the  hills  take, 
and  for  many  miles  preserve,  the  shape  of 
natural  fortifications.  Circuitous  pathways 
wind  up  the  faces  of  the  crags.  A  chapel 
crowns  one  of  the  loftiest  summits.  Cottages 
nestle  hi  the  vales  below.  Gaunt  windmills 
stretch  forth  their  arms,  upon  the  distant 
hills.  Every  rood  of  the  land  is  cultivated  ; 
and  there,  as  in  England,  the  scarlet  poppies 
brighten  the  green,  while  cosy  hedgerows 
make  the  landscape  comfortable  to  the  fancy 
as  well  as  pretty  to  the  eye,  with  a  sense  of 
human  companionship. 

In  the  gloaming  we  glided  into  Paris,  and 
soon  I  was  driving  in  the  Champs  Elysees 
and  thinking  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  No- 
body can  know,  without  seeing  them,  how 
imperial  the  great  features  of  Paris  are. 
My  first  morning  there  was  a  Sunday,  and 
it  was  made  beautiful  by  sunshine,  singing 
of  birds,  strains  of  music  from  passing 
bands,  and  the  many  sights  and  sounds 
which  in  every  direction  bespoke  the  cheer- 
fulness of  the  people.  I  went  that  day  to 
a  fete  in  the  Bois  de  Vincennes,  where  from 
noon  till  midniglit  a  great  throng  took  its 
pleasure,  in  the  most  orderly,  simple,  child- 
like manner,  and  where  I  saw  a  "picture 
in  little"  of  the  manners  of  the  French. 


BEAUTIES    OF    FRANCE.  69 

It  was  a  peculiar  pleasure  while  in  Paris  to 
rise  at  an  early  hour  and  stroll  through  the 
markets  of  St.  Honore,  in  which  flowers 
have  an  equal  place  with  more  substantial 
necessities  of  life,  and  where  order  and 
neatness  are  perfect.  It  was  impressive, 
also,  to  walk  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries, 
in  those  lonely  morning  hours,  and  to  muse 
over  the  downfall  of  the  dynasty  of  Napo- 
leon. Those  gardens,  formerly  the  private 
grounds  of  the  emperor,  were  open  to  the 
public  ;  and  streams  of  labourers,  clothed 
in  blue  blouses,  poured  through  them  every 
day.  But  little  trace  remained  of  the  rav- 
ages of  the  Commune.  The  Arc  de  Triomphe 
stands,  in  solemn  majesty ;  the  Colunm 
Vendome  towers  toward  the  sky ;  the 
golden  figure  seems  still  in  act  of  flight 
upon  the  top  of  the  Column  of  the  Bastile. 
I  saw,  in  the  church  of  Xotre  Dame,  the 
garments  —  stained  with  blood  and  riddled 
with  bullets  —  that  were  worn  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris,  when  he  was  murdered  by 
the  friends  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fra- 
ternity ;  and  I  saw,  with  admiration,  a 
panorama  of  the  siege  of  Paris,  by  F,  Phil- 
lipoteaux,  wliich  is  a  marvel  of  faithful 
detail,  spirited  composition,  and  the  action 
and  suffering  of  war.     But  those  were  all 


70  BEAUTIES    OF    FltANCE. 

the  tokens  that  I  chanced  to  see  of  the  evil 
days  of  France. 

The  most  interesting  sights  of  Paris,  to 
a  stranger,  are  the  objects  associated  with 
its  older  history.  Every  visitor  repairs 
presently  to  Les  Invalides  to  see  the  tomb 
of  Napoleon  Buonaparte.  That  structure 
would  inspire  awe  even  if  it  were  not  asso- 
ciated with  that  glittering  name  and  that 
terrible  memory.  The  gloom  of  the  crypt 
m  which  it  is  sunk  ;  the  sepulchral  character 
of  the  mysterious,  emblematic  figures  that 
surround  it —  "  staring  right  on,  with  calm 
eternal  eyes  "  ;  the  grandeur  of  the  dome 
that  rises  above  it ;  and  its  own  vast  size 
and  deathly  shape  —  all  those  characteris- 
tics unite  to  make  it  a  most  impressive 
object,  apart  from  the  solemn  sense  that 
in  the  great,  red-sandstone  coffin  rests,  at 
last,  after  the  stormiest  of  human  lives,  the 
ashes  of  the  most  vital  man  of  action  who 
has  lived  in  modern  times.  Deeply  impres- 
sive also  are  the  tombs  of  Voltaire  and 
Kousseau,  in  the  crypt  under  the  Pantheon. 
Ko  device  more  apposite  and  significant 
could  have  been  adopted  than  that  which 
startles  you  on  the  front  of  Rousseau's 
tomb.  The  door  stands  ajar,  and  out  of  it 
issues  an  arm  and  hand,  in  marble,  grasp- 


BEAUTIES    OF    FRANCE.  7 1 

ing  a  torch.  It  was  almost  as  if  the  dead 
had  spoken  with  a  living  voice,  to  see  that 
fateful  symbol  of  a  power  of  thought  and 
passion  that  never  can  die,  while  human 
hearts  remain  human.  There  is  a  fine 
statue  of  Voltaire  in  the  vault  that  holds 
his  tomb.  Those  mausoleums  are  merely- 
commemorative.  The  body  of  Voltaire  was 
destroyed  with  quicklime  when  laid  in  the 
grave,  at  the  Abbey  of  Celleries,  so  that  it 
might  not  be  cast  out  of  consecrated  ground. 
Other  tombs  of  departed  gi-eatness  I  found 
in  Pere  la  Chaise,  Moliere  and  La  Fon- 
taine rest  side  by  side,  Racine  is  a  neigh- 
bour to  them.  Talma,  Auber,  Rossini,  De 
Musset,  Desclee,  and  many  other  illus- 
trious names,  may  there  be  read,  in  the  let- 
ters of  death,  Rachel's  tomb  Is  in  the 
Hebrew  quarter  of  the  cemetery  —  a  tall, 
narrow,  stone  structure,  with  a  grated  door, 
over  which  the  name  of  Rachel  is  graven, 
in  black  letters.  Looking  through  the  grat- 
ing I  saw  a  shelf  on  which  were  vases  and 
flowers,  and  beneath  it  were  fourteen  im- 
mortelle wreaths,  A  few  cards,  left  by 
pilgrims  to  that  solemn  shrine  of  genius 
and  reno"s\Ti,  were  upon  the  floor,  and  I  ven- 
tured to  add  my  own,  in  humble  reverence 
of  genius,  to  the  names  which  thus  gave 


72  TJEAUTIKS    OK    KRANCE. 

homage  to  the  memory  of  a  great  actress ; 
and  I  gathered  a  few  leaves  from  the  slirub- 
bery  that  grows  in  front  of  her  grave.  The 
famous  cemetery  is  comparatively  destitute 
of  flowers  and  grass.  It  contains  a  few 
avenues  of  trees,  but  for  the  most  part  it  is 
a  mass  of  ponderous  tombs,  crowded  to- 
gether upon  a  hot  hill -side,  traversed  by 
little  stony  pathways  sweltering  in  sun  and 
dust.  No  sadder  graveyard  was  ever  seen. 
All  the  acute  anguish  of  remediless  suffer- 
ing, all  the  abject  misery  and  arid  desola- 
tion of  hopeless  grief,  is  symbolised  in  that 
melancholy  place.  Artisans  were  repairing 
the  tomb  of  Heloise  and  Abelard,  and  this, 
for  a  while,  converted  a  bit  of  old  romance 
to  modern  commonness.  Still,  I  saw  the 
tomb,  and  it  was  elevating  to  think  that 
there  may  be  "  Words  which  are  things, 
hopes  which  do  not  deceive." 

The  most  gorgeous  modern  building  in 
Paris  is  the  Opera  House.  No  building  in 
America  can  vie  with  it  in  ornate  splendour. 
Some  observers  do  but  scant  justice  to  the 
solid  qualities  in  the  French  character. 
That  character  is  mercurial,  yet  it  contains 
elements  of  stupendous  intensity  and  power; 
and  this  you  feel,  as  perhaps  you  may  never 
have  felt  it  before,  when  you  look  at  such 


BEAUTIES    OF    FIIAXCE.  'JT, 

•works  as  the  Opera  House,  the  Pantheon, 
the  Madeleine,  the  Invalicles,  the  Louvre, 
the  Luxembourg,  and  the  miles  of  stone 
embankment  that  hem  in  the  Seine  on  both 
its  sides.  The  grandest  old  building  in 
Paris  —  also  a  living  witness  to  French 
power  and  purpose  —  is  the  church  of  Notre 
Dame.  It  will  not  displace,  in  the  affec- 
tionate reverence  of  Americans,  the  glory 
of  "Westminster  Abbey  ;  but  it  will  fill  al- 
most an  equal  place  in  their  memory.  Its 
arches  are  not  so  grand  ;  its  associations  are 
not  so  sacred.  But  it  is  exceedingly  beau- 
tiful in  forms  and  in  simplicity,  and  no  one 
can  help  loving  it ;  and  by  reason  of  its 
skilfully  devised  vistas  it  is  perhaps  in- 
vested with  more  of  the  alluring  attribute 
of  mystery.  Some  of  its  associations  are 
especially  impressive.  You  may  there  see 
the  chapel  in  which  Mary  Stuart  was  mar- 
ried to  her  first  husband,  Francis  II.  of 
France,  and  in  which  Henry  VI.,  of  Eng- 
land, was  crowned  ;  and  you  may  stand  on 
the  spot  on  which  Xapoleon  Buonaparte  in- 
vested himself  with  the  imperial  diadem  — 
which  with  his  own  hands  he  placed  on  his 
own  head.i    I  chmbed  the  tower  of  that 

1  Richard  I.  of  England,  at  his  first  coronation, 
on  September  3,  1189,  in  "SVestminster  Abbey,  took 


74  BEAUTIKS    OF    FRANCE. 

famous  cathedral  and  at  the  loftiest  attain- 
able height  pictured  in  fancy  the  awful 
closing  scene  of  The  Hunchback  of  Notre 
Dame.  That  romance  seemed  the  truth 
then,  and  Claude  Frollo,  Esmeralda,  and 
Quasimodo  were  as  real  as  Richelieu.  There 
is  a  vine  growing  near  the  bell-tower  and 
some  children  were  at  play  there,  on  the 
stone  platform.  I  went  in  beneath  the  bell 
and  smote  upon  it  with  a  wooden  mallet 
and  heard  with  pleasure  its  rich,  melodious, 
soulful  music.  The  four  hundred  steps  are 
well  worn  that  lead  to  the  tower  of  Notre 
Dame.  There  are  few  places  on  earth  so 
fraught  with  memories  ;  few  that  so  well 
repay  the  homage  of  a  pilgrim  from  a  foreign 
land. 

the  crown  from  the  altar  and  delivered  it  to  the 
archbishop.  In  both  cases  the  purpose  was  to  sig- 
nify that  the  crown  was  not  the  gift  of  the  church. 


ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL.  75 


vn. 

ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL. 

ELY,  Cambridgeshire,  September  6, 1891. 
—  Gray  and  sombre  London,  gloomy 
beneath  vast  clouds  of  steel  and  bronze,  is 
once  more  left  behind.  Old  Highgate  flits 
by  and  sve  roll  through  the  network  of  little 
towns  that  fills  all  the  space  between  Horn- 
sey  and  Tottenham.  The  country  along  our 
course  is  one  of  exceptional  interest,  and 
but  that  Buggins  the  Builder  has  marred  it 
by  making  the  houses  alike  it  would  be  one 
of  peculiar  beauty.  Around  Tottenham  the 
dwellmgs  are  interspersed  with  meadows 
and  there  are  market-gardens  and  nurseries 
of  flowers,  —  the  bright  gi-een  of  carrot-tops 
and  of  the  humble  but  portly  cabbage  being 
pleasantly  relieved  by  masses  of  brilliant 
hollyhock.  Broad  fields  ensue,  —  cultivated 
to  the  utmost  and  smiling  with  plenty;  and 
aroimd  some  of  the  houses  are  beautiful 
green  lawns,  divided  with  hedges  of  haw- 
thorn.    The  country,  for  the  most  part,  is 


76  ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL. 

level,  and  a  fine  effect  is  produced  upon  the 
landscape  by  single  tall  trees  or  by  isolated 
groups  of  them,  — especially  where  the  plain 
slopes  gently  toward  gleaming  rivulet  and 
bird-haunted  vale.  Everywhere  the  aspect 
is  that  of  prosperity  and  bloom.  The  sun 
has  pierced  the  clouds  and  is  faintly  light- 
ing with  a  golden  haze  this  shadowy  sum- 
mer scene  of  loveliness  and  peace.  In  the 
distance  are  several  small  streams,  dark, 
bright,  and  still,  and  near  them  many  white 
and  brown  cattle,  conspicuous  in  a  sudden 
burst  of  sunshine,  are  couched  under  the 
trees.  A  little  canal-boat,  gayly  painted 
red  and  green,  winds  slowly  through  the 
plain,  and  over  the  harvest  fields  the  omni- 
present rook  wings  his  solemn  flight  or 
perches  on  the  yellow  sheaves.  Chingford 
has  been  left  to  the  east,  —  where  you  may 
explore  one  of  the  most  picturesque  ruined 
churches  in  this  country,  and  w-here  they 
show  you  a  hunting-lodge  that  once  was 
owned  and  used  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  —  and 
Enfield  has  been  left  to  the  west  where 
the  nettles  grow  rank  on  the  low  grave  of 
Charles  Lamb,  within  the  shadow  of  the 
grim  church-tower  that  reverberated  with 
his  funeral  knell.  White  "Webs  has  been 
passed,  with  its  associations  of  Father  Gar- 


ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL.  // 

net  and  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  and  passed 
also  is  Ponder' s  End,  with  its  rehcs  and 
memories  of  the  baleful  Judge  Jeffreys. 
At  Eye  House  the  pilgrim  remembers  the 
plan  that  was  hatched  there  to  murder 
Charles  11.,  and  thinks  of  the  miserable 
death  of  Lord  William  Russell  upon  the 
block  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  Bishop's 
Stortford  brings  thoughts  of  the  cruel 
Bishop  Bonner.  But  the  beauty  of  nature 
triumphs  over  the  depravity  of  man,  and 
nowhere  in  this  verdant  and  blooming  re- 
gion is  there  any  hint  of  a  wicked  heart  or 
a  sinister  action. 

The  church  at  Bishop's  Stortford  crowns 
a  fine  eminence  and  near  that  place  an  old 
brick  windmill  and  many  black  cattle  make 
a  striking  picture  in  the  gentle  landscape. 
The  pretty  villages  of  Stanstead  and  Elsen- 
ham  glide  by,  and  the  wanderer's  gaze, 
as  they  pass,  rests  dreamily  on  tiny  red 
cottages  with  lichened  roofs  and  on  the 
broad,  fertile  farms  that  surround  them. 
Between  Audley  End  and  Cambridge  there 
is  a  long  stretch  of  country-  that  contains 
only  farms  and  villages,  —  the  cultivation 
of  the  land  being  thorough  and  perfect  and 
the  result  a  picture  of  contentment  and 
repose.     Presently  the  region  grows  more 


yS  KLY    AND    ITS    CATIIKDRAL. 

liilly  and  imder  clouds  of  steel  and  silver 
the  landscape  is  swept  by  a  cool,  fragrant 
wind,  bringing  dashes  of  sudden  rain. 
Hedges  are  abundant.  Many  flocks  of 
sheep  are  seen  in  the  pastures.  Fine  farm- 
houses appear  and  many  signs  of  opulence 
are  all  around  them.  Wooden  windmills 
rise  picturesque  upon  the  heights,  and  the 
eye  rests  delightedly  on  long  rows  of  the 
graceful  Lombardy  poplar.  White  roads 
are  visible,  here  and  there,  winding  away 
into  the  distance,  and  many  kinds  of  trees 
abomid ;  yet  everywhere  there  is  an  ample 
prospect.  At  Shelf ord  comes  a  burst  of 
sunshine,  and  looking  toward  the  horizon  I 
see  tall  trees  that  stand  like  sentinels  around 
the  lovely  plain  of  classic  Cambridge, — 
where  soon  I  am  to  wander  among  such 
stately  haunts  of  learning  as  will  fire  the 
imagination  and  fill  the  memory  forever 
with  shapes  and  scenes  and  thoughts  of 
majesty  and  glory  that  words  are  powerless 
to  tell.  But  the  aspect  of  Cambridge,  as 
we  glide  now  along  its  margin,  gives  no 
hint  of  the  overwhelming  magnificence 
within  its  borders.  Beyond  it,  still  flying 
northward,  we  traverse  a  flat  country  and 
see  the  long  roads  bowered  with  trees,  the 
deep  emerald  verdure,  the  banks  of  white 


ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL.  79 

daisies  and  red  clover,  the  gardens  brilliant 
with  scarlet-runners,  sunflowers,  and  mari- 
golds, the  rooks  at  their  customary  occupa- 
tion of  feeding,  —  provident,  vigilant,  saga- 
cious, and  wonderfully  humorous,  —  the 
artistic  forms  of  the  hay-ricks,  some  circu- 
lar, some  cone-shaped,  some  square  with 
bevelled  edges,  and  in  the  long,  yellow  fields 
the  mowers  at  their  work,  some  swinging 
their  scythes  and  some  pausing  to  rest. 
These  and  others  like  them  are  the  labourers 
whose  slow  and  patient  toil,  under  guidance 
of  a  wise  and  refined  taste,  has  gradually 
transformed  almost  all  England  into  a  gar- 
den of  beauty  and  delight  —  for  in  every 
part  of  this  country  industry  is  incessant, 
and  hand  in  hand  with  industry  goes  thrift. 
A  vast  gray  tower  rising  superbly  out  of 
a  dense  mass  of  green  and  glistening  foliage, 
a  gray  spire  near  at  hand,  visible  amid  a 
cluster  of  red  and  wrinkled  roofs,  and  over 
all  a  flood  of  sunshine  —  and  this  is  Ely  ! 
I  had  not  been  an  hour  in  the  town  before 
I  had  climbed  to  the  summit  of  the  western 
tower  of  the  cathedral,  and  gazed  out  upon 
the  green  and  golden  plains  of  Cambridge- 
shire, Suffolk,  and  Northampton,  lit  by  the 
afternoon  sun  and  blazing  with  light  and 
colour  for  thirty  miles  around.     Far  to  the 


8o  ELY    AND    lis    CATIIKDKAL. 

northwest  yon  may  just  discern  the  black 
tower  of  Peterborough.  North  and  east, 
at  a  still  greater  distance,  a  dim  gray  shape 
reveals  the  ramparts  of  Norwich.  Thirty 
miles  northward  rise  the  sj)ires  of  Lynn. 
You  cannot  see  them,  but  the  wash  of  the 
North  sea  breaks  in  music  on  that  delicious 
coast,  and  the  strong  ocean  breeze,  sweep- 
ing over  the  moors  and  fens,  cools  the 
whole  land  and  stirs  its  sun-lit  foliage  till 
it  seems  to  sparkle  with  joyous  motion. 
The  Ouse  ^  winds  through  the  plain,  at  some 
distance,  south  and  east,  —  dark  and  shin- 
ing in  the  glow  of  the  autumn  afternoon,  — 
while,  gliding  between  hedges  in  the  west 
and  south,  come  little  railway  trains  from 
Cambridge  and  Saint  Ives.  Nearer,  far 
below,  and  nestling  around  the  great 
church  are  the  cosy  dwellings  of  the  clean 
and  quiet  town  —  one  of  the  neatest,  most 
orderly,  most  characteristic  towns  in  Eng- 

1  This  river,  and  not  the  Ouse  that  flows  through 
York,  is  Cowper's  "  Ouse,  slow-winding  through  its 
level  plain."  That  poet's  life  (1731-1800)  is  asso- 
ciated with  Berkharapstead,  Hertfordshire,  where 
he  was  born;  Huntingdon  and  (^)lney,  in  Bucking- 
hamshire—  botli  on  the  Ouse;  Weston,  in  Xorth- 
amptonshire;  and  Dereham,  in  Norfolk,  where  he 
died.  His  ashes  rest  in  the  parish  church  of  Dere- 
ham. 


ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDIiAL.  8 1 

land.  Houses,  streets,  and  trees  commingle 
in  the  picture,  and  you  discern  that  the 
streets  are  irregular  and  full  of  pleasing 
curves,  the  buildings  being  mostly  made 
of  light  gray  or  tawny  yellow  brick,  and 
roofed  with  slate  or  with  brown  tiles  that 
the  action  of  the  weather  has  curiously 
wrinkled  and  the  damp  has  marked  with 
lichen  and  moss.  At  this  dizzy  height  you 
are  looking  dowii  even  upon  that  colossal 
octagon  tower,  the  famous  lantern  of  Ely 
(built  by  Prior  Alan  de  Walsingham,  a 
little  after  1322),  which  is  one  of  the  mar- 
vels of  ecclesiastical  architecture  through- 
out the  world.  It  is  a  prospect  at  once  of 
extraordinary  rural  sweetness,  religious 
pomp,  and  august  and  solemn  antiquity. 
It  is  a  pageant  of  superb  modern  civilisa- 
tion and  refinement,  and  yet,  as  you  gaze 
upon  it,  you  forget  all  that  is  contempo- 
rarv^  and  present,  and  seem  to  be  standing 
among  the  phantom  shapes  and  in  the 
haunted  cloisters  of  the  ]Middle  Ages. 

Each  of  the  great  abbeys  of  England  has 
its  distinctive  character.  The  beauty  of 
Ely  is  originality  combined  with  magnifi- 
cence. That  cathedral  is  not  only  glorious  ; 
it  is  also  strange.  The  colossal  porch,  the 
stupendous  tower,  the  long  nave  with  its 

F 


82  KLY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL. 

marvellous  painted  ceiling,  the  vast  central 
octagon,  the  uncommon  size  and  the  un- 
usual position  of  the  Lady  chapel,  the  mas- 
sive buttresses,  the  delicate  yet  robust 
beauty  of  the  flanking  turrets,  the  wealth 
of  carved  niches  and  pinnacles  —  all  those 
elements  of  splendour  unite  to  dazzle  the 
vision  and  overwhelm  the  soul.  Inside  the 
church  there  is  nothing  to  obstruct  your 
view  of  it  from  end  to  end ;  the  Gothic 
architecture  is  not  overladen,  as  in  so  many 
other  cathedrals  in  Europe,  with  inharmo- 
nious Grecian  monuments  ;  and  when  you 
are  permitted  to  sit  there,  in  the  stillness, 
with  no  sound  of  a  human  voice  and  no 
purl  of  ecclesiastical  prattle  to  call  you 
back  to  earth,  you  must  indeed  be  hard  to 
impress  if  your  thoughts  are  not  centred 
upon  heaven.  It  is  the  little  preacher  in 
his  ridiculous  vestments,  it  is  man  with  liis 
vanity  and  folly,  that  humiliates  the  rever- 
ent pilgrim  in  such  holy  places  as  this,  by 
his  insistent  contrast  of  his  own  conven- 
tional littleness  with  all  that  is  celestial  in 
the  grandest  architectural  results  of  the 
inspiration  of  genius.  Alas,  and  again 
Alas !  When  I  remember  what  glorious 
places  have  been  almost  ruined  for  me 
by  inveterate  human  gabble  I  know  not 


ELY   AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL.  S;^ 

whether  the  sentiment  that  predominates 
is  resentment  or  despair.  But  for  every 
true  worshipper  the  moment  of  solitude 
comes,  and  with  it  comes  the  benediction 
of  beauty.  During  some  part  of  last  night 
I  stood  at  my  window,  in  the  Lamb,  and 
looked  at  the  great  cathedral,  silent  and 
sombre  under  the  cold  light  of  the  stars. 
The  wind  was  blowing,  fresh  and  strong. 
The  streets  were  deserted.  The  lights  had 
been  put  out  and  the  people  had  gone  to 
rest.  But  it  did  not  seem  that  the  ancient 
church  is  a  dead  thing,  or  that  slumber 
ever  comes  to  it,  or  weakness,  or  forgetful- 
ness,  or  repose.  It  keeps  an  eternal  vigil, 
watchful  over  the  earth  and  silently  com- 
muning with  heaven  ;  and  as  I  gazed  up- 
ward at  its  fretted  battlements  I  could 
almost  see  the  wings  of  angels  waving  in 
the  midnight  air. 

It  is  early  morning  now,  and  across  a 
lovely  blue  sky  float  thin  clouds  of  snowy 
fleece,  while  many  rooks  soar  above  the 
lofty  towers  of  Ely,  darting  into  crevices 
in  its  gray  crown,  or  settlmg  upon  its  para- 
pets, with  many  a  hoarse  and  querulous 
croak.  The  little  town  has  not  yet  awak- 
ened. Nothing  is  stirring  except  a  few 
dead  leaves  that  the  wind  has  blown  down 


b4  l-^I>V    AM)    ITS    CATUKDKAL. 

over  night,  and  that  are  now  wildly  whirled 
along  the  white,  hard,  cleanly  streets.  The 
level  on  which  this  ancient  settlement 
rests  is  so  even  and  so  extensive  that 
from  almost  any  elevation  you  can  see 
the  tree-line  on  the  distant  horizon.  Some 
of  the  houses  have  doors  and  shutters  of 
yellow  oak.  The  narrow  causeways  are 
paved  with  smooth  gray  stone  or  slate.  Not 
many  lattices  or  gables  are  visible,  such  as 
one  sees  so  often  in  Canterbury  and  Win- 
chester, nor  is  there  in  all  Ely  such  a 
romantic  street  as  the  exquisite  Vicar's 
Close,  at  Wells ;  but  bits  of  old  monastic 
architecture  are  numerous,  —  arched  gate- 
ways fretted  by  time,  shields  of  stone, 
carved  entablatures,  and  broken  gargoyles, 
—  curiously  commingled  with  the  cottage 
ornamentation  of  a  more  modern  day.  On 
the  long  village- green  in  front  of  the  cathe- 
dral stands  a  handsome  piece  of  ordnance 
that  was  captured  at  Sebastopol  —  peace- 
ful enough  now,  before  the  temple  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace.  A  little  way  off  rises 
the  spire  of  St.  Mary's,  a  gray  relic  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  remarkable  for  its 
door-arches  of  blended  Norman  and  early 
English  art.  Close  at  hand  is  the  venerable 
Tudor  palace,  which   for  more   than  four 


ELY    AND    ITS    CATHEDRAL.  85 

centuries  has  been  inhabited  by  the  bishops 
of  Ely,  and  upon  some  part  of  which  may 
have  rested  the  gaze  of  that  astute  states- 
man, Bishop  Morton,  who  "fled  to  Rich- 
mond," and  whose  defection  wrought  the 
political  ruin  of  Richard  III.  Every  way 
you  turn  and  everywhere  you  ramble  there 
is  something  to  inspire  historic  memories 
or  awaken  impressive  thought.  Just  as 
Glastonbuiy,  upon  the  golden  plain  of  Som- 
erset, was  once  the  Isle  of  Avalon,  so  this 
place,  lonely  among  the  fens  of  Eastern 
Anglia,  was  once  the  Isle  of  Ely.  It  is 
more  than  twelve  hundred  years  since  the 
resolute  devotion  of  a  chaste  and  noble 
woman  made  this  a  sacred .  spot ;  and  if 
storied  Ely  taught  no  other  lesson  and  gave 
no  other  comfort  it  would  at  least,  —  as  the 
commemorative  monument  to  the  Saxon 
princess  Ethelryth.  —  admonish  us  that  life 
is  capable  of  higher  things  than  mortal 
love,  and  that  the  most  celestial  of  women 
is  the  woman  who  is  sufficient  unto  her- 
self. 


f^6       FROM   FDIXniMfOII  TO  INVKRXF.SS. 


VIII. 

FROM    EDINBURGH    TO    INVERNESS. 

INVERNESS,  September  22,  1891.  —The 
Pentland  Hills  vanish  to  the  southward, 
under  clouds  of  pale  blue  steel,  through 
which  the  silver  globe  of  the  morning  sun 
strives  vainly  to  break  its  way,  casting  a  dim 
gray  twilight  over  the  wide  green  landscape 
and  adding  to  its  beauty  by  fine  contrast  of 
colour.  The  tide  is  out,  as  we  cross  the 
Forth  bridge,  and  many  boats  are  aground 
upon  the  sands  beneath  it ;  but  many  ves- 
sels, including  a  trim  ship  of  war,  are  at 
anchor  in  the  stream,  and  the  graceful  stone 
piers,  the  gray  villages  on  the  banks  of 
Forth,  and  the  miniature  lighthouses  on  the 
little  rocks  along  its  channel  make  the  same 
lovely  picture  as  of  old.  The  water,  much 
beaten  by  the  equinoctial  rain  of  the  last 
two  or  three  days,  is  smooth  and  of  a  sul- 
len brown.  A  cool  wind  is  blowing,  and 
birds  are  on  the  wing.  Soon  tlie  sunshine 
grows  stronger  and  upon  the  emerald  hills 


FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INVERNESS.       87 

and  plains  around  Dunfermline  there  are 
exquisite  effects  of  golden  light  and  passing 
shadow.  The  old  church-tower  shows  grand 
beneath  a  wild  sky,  and  in  our  fitful  glimpse 
of  it  we  think  of  the  grand  life  that  it  com- 
memorates, and  revere  the  good  Queen 
]\Iargaret  whose  grave  was  made  at  its 
base.  On  many  hill-sides  around  this  an- 
cient city  are  sheaves  of  the  harvest,  and 
we  note  the  calm,  self-absorbed  cattle, 
grazing  in  the  wet  meadows.  The  clouds 
that  had  dispersed  grow  suddenly  dense, 
but  shafts  of  sunUght  linger  continually  on 
the  high  summits  of  the  bleak,  distant  hills, 
and  presently  the  blue  of  heaven  shines 
through  great  rifts  in  the  sullen  sky,  and 
all  nature  seems  to  be  rejoicing  after  the 
storm.  The  bumies,  which  are  full  to  over- 
flowing, rush  gayly  on  theic  course  and 
murmur  and  sparkle  as  they  speed.  Scores 
of  sheep  couch  in  the  pastures,  —  the  placid 
images  of  innocent  content.  Loch  Leven 
is  revealed  to  us, — its  wide,  gray  water 
gleaming  in  the  fitful  sun,  —  and  as  we 
gaze  upon  its  island  and  upon  the  little 
dark  town  that  is  nestled  on  its  shore,  our 
thoughts  fly  away  to  the  remote  days  of 
Mary  Stuart,  and  we  see  her  midnight  flit- 
ting across  the   stormy  waves,  and   muse 


88       FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INVERNESS. 

once  more  upon  the  fascination  of  that  im- 
perial nature,  victorious  over  so  many  noble 
souls,  and  now,  at  the  distance  of  more 
than  three  centuries,  still  vital  and  still 
triumphant.  Toward  Perth  the  country 
grows  more  hilly  and  rocky,  and  we  traverse 
tuiniels  and  roll  through  deep  ravines  that 
are  densely  clad  with  the  beautiful  Scotch 
fir.  Upon,  the  more  distant  hills  there  are 
copses,  which  have  an  aristocratic  effect  of 
studied  refinement,  while  numerous  sheep, 
reposing  amid  the  dark  green  broom,  show 
upon  the  landscape  like  little  balls  of  white 
wool.  Down  in  the  lowlands  are  haystacks 
shaped  like  ancient  towers  —  one  sign, 
among  many  others,  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  forms  of  the  JNIiddle  Ages  have 
affected  the  taste  of  to-day.  Perth  itself 
lies  couched,  in  a  green  glen,  with  lovely 
wooded  hills  around  it,  and  as  we  enter  its 
beautiful  valley  the  sky  is  a  dome  of  almost 
cloudless  blue,  flooded  with  golden  light. 
Northward  a  brown -red  castle  rises  stately 
among  the  trees,  and  soon  we  see  the  glis- 
tening water  of  the  superb  Tay  winding 
through  the  most  opulent  meadows  of  Scot- 
land. Never  could  memory  lose  such  a  pic- 
ture, —  the  brilliant  green  of  the  fields ; 
the  patches  of  red  clover ;  the  beds  of  mari- 


FHOM  EDINBURGH  TO  JNVKRNESS.       89 

gold  ;  the  purple  of  heather ;  the  wild  lux- 
uriance of  the  bracken  ;  the  vine-clad  stone 
walls  ;  the  groves  of  poplar,  larch,  oak,  and 
pine  ;  the  thick-leaved  boughs  tossing,  and 
the  many- coloured  flowers  trembling,  in  a 
cold,  brisk  wind  ;  the  constantly  changing 
outlines  of  the  distant  hills ;  and,  over  all, 
the  benediction  of  the  golden  sun.  This 
part  of  Scotland  is  as  finely  cultivated  as 
the  best  of  England,  and  similar  to  it,  — 
and  sometimes  superior  to  it,  —  in  effect  of 
opulence  and  beauty. 

For  a  long  distance  after  leaving  Perth 
our  course  is  through  a  fertile  valley.  The 
sun  lies  warm  upon  it  and  the  vegetation  is 
very  rich.  Xo  observer  could  fail  to  notice, 
in  that  region,  the  splendid  effect  of  sun- 
shine glinting  through  the  trees  —  the  foliage 
illuminated  and  glowing  as  if  with  internal 
light.  In  a  little  while  we  come  to  Dunkeld, 
and  then  presently  to  Dalguise.  It  is  a 
lonely  country,  —  but  all  the  lovelier  for  its 
loneliness.  The  encircling  hills  are  craggy 
and  gaunt  rocks  stare  through  the  trees. 
There  is  a  wealth  of  woods,  of  remarkable 
variety,  and  many  pretty  roads  wind  away 
and  are  lost  in  them.  The  bushes  are  cov- 
ered with  hips  and  haws.  The  dark  stream 
of  Tummel  shines  in  a  deep  ravine.     Pine 


90       FROM   EDIXniUftll  TO  IXVFRNESS. 

forests  begin  to  crown  the  hills,  and  our  gaze 
lingers  pleased  upon  little  shielings  of  gray- 
stone,  nestled  in  the  sheltered  dells.  We 
are  coming  to  Pitlochrie  now,  which  is  one 
of  the  loveliest  places  in  the  Highlands,  and 
to  that  famous  Pass  of  Killiecrankie,  through 
which,  in  a  frenzy  of  panic,  the  broken  and 
bleeding  ranks  of  the  English  fled  from  the 
victorious  Highlanders  of  Dundee.  The 
houses  of  Pitlochrie,  made  of  gray  stone  and 
rising  amid  groves  of  birch  and  Scotch  fir, 
are  blazing  with  roses  and  with  the  brilliant 
purple  shields  of  the  clematis,  and  around 
them  the  crisp  air  is  honeyed  with  the  balmy 
fragrance  of  the  pine.  The  Tummel  and  the 
Garry  commingle  here  ;  the  scenery  blends 
rugged  grandeur  with  tranquil  refinement ; 
and  surely  it  may  be  said  that  few  spots  in 
Great  Britain  are  lovelier  than  this  one.  A 
glowing  autumn  sun  pours  its  flood  of  crystal 
light  upon  the  wild  Pass  of  Killiecrankie  and 
the  narrow  rapid  stream  in  the  depth  of  the 
verdurous  mountain  gorge  is  burning  with 
the  lustre  of  a  river  of  diamonds.  Every 
element  of  great  scenery,  —  excepting  the 
American  element  of  great  size, — may  be 
seen  at  Killiecrankie,  and  from  there  to 
Blair-Athole.  They  have  marked  with  a 
memorial  stone  the  place,  upon  the  battle- 


FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INVERNESS.       9I 

field,  where  the  victorious  Claverhonse  fell, 
—  a  mighty  spirit ;  a  hero  equally  of  historj- 
and  romance  ;  a  great  soldier ;  perhaps,  after 
Montrose,  the  greatest  soldier  that  Scotland 
has  ever  known.  Our  thoughts  are  full  of 
him  as  we  rush  through  this  wild  and  glo- 
rious region  of  his  last  battle,  his  brilliant 
victor}-,  and  his  triumphant  death.  Ended 
long  ago  was  that  unavailing  strife  —  that 
useless,  pathetic  waste  of  valour  and  vigour 
and  blood,  Xothing  but  an  epitaph  remains 
to  tell  of  it.  But  genius  can  hallow  what- 
ever it  touches ;  and  as  long  as  the  stars 
hold  their  courses  in  the  heavens  this  grand 
mountain  pass  and  haunted  glen  will  keep 
the  hallowed  memory  of  the  great  Marquis 
of  Dundee.  Scant  pause  is  allowed  for  rev- 
erie. The  great  are  gone  —  but  the  sun 
shines  and  the  roses  bloom,  and  if  we  would 
see  them  at  all  we  must  see  them  now. 
When  Dundee  fought  his  battle  it  was  a 
scene  of  wildness  and  of  gloom.  It  is  a 
scene  of  bloom  and  beauty  to-day.  The 
hills  around  Tummel  and  Garry  are  yellow 
with  hay-fields,  and  in  the  levels  below  there 
are  thick-fleeced  sheep,  and  sleek  cattle, 
and  graceful  hayricks,  and  clumps  of  firs. 
Blair-Athole  sleeps  in  a  vale  of  sunshine, 
and  around  it,  far  away,  rise  the  bold  bare 


92       FROM  EDINHUROU  TO  INVERNESS. 

peaks  of  the  mountains  that  are  Scotland's 
glory  and  pride.  As  the  pageant  lessens 
you  see  a  vast  range  of  wooded  acclivity  on 
the  east  and  the  river  Tummel  on  the  west, 
flowing  at  the  base  6f  brown  and  barren 
crags.  Throughout  this  region  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  gray  stone  houses  is  charac- 
teristic and  superior  ;  and  if  it  lacks  the 
repose  of  the  English  rural  village  it  pos- 
sesses a  blending  of  solidity  and  piquancy 
all  its  own.  The  cone-pointed  turret  often 
rises  among  the  trees,  and  the  Tudor  porch, 
covered  with  late  roses,  gleams  forth  from 
groves  of  fir ;  and  everywhere  there  are 
shapes  and  objects  of  beauty  —  the  rowan- 
tree,  blooming  and  brilliant  with  its  clusters 
of  red  berries ;  the  blazing  purple  of  the 
heather-clad  hills  ;  the  fantastically  figured 
groups  of  wandering  sheep;  the  brown, 
transparent  water  of  the  rapid  stream,  — 
at  intervals  suddenly  broken  into  a  tumult 
of  silver  foam  ;  and,  far  away,  a  faint,  deli- 
cate, blue  mist  upon  mountain  peaks  that 
seem  to  tower  into  heaven. 

North  of  the  Forest  of  Athole  now  —  and 
our  track  is  through  a  land  of  rock  and 
heather,  with  not  one  tree  to  give  it  shade 
and  with  no  creature  stirring  but  an  occa- 
sional sheep.     For  miles  and  miles  we  look 


FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INYERNKSS.       93 

on  nothing  but  lonely  heath,  extending  up 
the  long  mountain  slopes  on  either  hand, 
desolate  beneath  the  clear  sunshine  of  a 
September  day.  A  solitaiy  human  being 
is  walking  over  the  moor,  and  the  dreary 
waste  grows  drearier  still,  as  our  gaze  rests 
upon  his  dark  figure  and  sees  it  fade  away. 
Soon  we  catch  a  momentary  glimpse  of 
Loch  Ericht,  —  the  highest  of  the  Scotch 
lochs  and  reputed  its  gloomiest,  —  and  grim 
and  gaunt  enough  it  is,  beneath  the  autum- 
nal sky,  which  even  now  has  begun  to 
lower  with  the  remote  approach  of  night. 
Around  us,  at  distance,  the  outline  of  the 
hills  is  much  broken,  —  range  beyond  range 
of  swart  and  grisly  mountains  rising  upon 
all  sides  and  filling  the  prospect.  AVe  are 
in  the  valley  of  the  Spey  and  are  traversing 
the  depth  of  Glen  Truim.  A  backward 
look  through  the  hill-gap  sees  the  whole 
wild  landscape  under  a  semi-dome  of  silver. 
Presently  the  glen  becomes  wooded ;  abodes 
of  man  appear  ;  hundreds  of  sheep  are  visi- 
ble upon  the  moors  ;  the  momitain-peaks 
are  nearer  and  the  mists  creep  down  upon 
them  and  swathe  them  in  a  silver  fleece ; 
while  a  few  birds  (the  first  that  we  have 
seen  for  hours)  fly  low  in  the  glen.  There 
is  a  noble  view  of  the  Spey,  whose  broad, 


94       FROM  EDIXBrRGlI  TO  INVPIRXESS. 

black  water,  flowing  beneath  the  three 
arches  of  the  bridge  of  Newtonmore,  glis- 
tens like  ebony  in  the  morning  light.  At 
Kingussie  we  view  a  sumptuous  tir-grove 
and  a  ruined  castle,  and  we  are  entranced 
with  the  lovely  effect  of  sunshine  falling 
here  and  there,  from  behind  black  clouds, 
on  hills  that  otherwise  are  lapt  in  shadow 
and  in  mist.  The  landscape  now  is  won- 
derfully various  —  a  splendid  breadth  of 
valley  bordered  with  young  firs  and  teeming 
with  dense  foliage  and  with  great  masses 
of  purple  heather.  The  village  of  Kincraig 
is  here  —  a  gem  to  be  remembered  and 
revisited  —  and  sweet  Loch  Ellen  is  not 
distant.  We  note  the  sharp  and  sudden 
contrast  of  fir-groves  with  barren,  deso- 
late, rock-strewn  hill-side.  A  lonely  cabin 
sweeps  into  view  and  a  woman  at  the  door 
pensively  looks  at  us  as  we  pass.  Loch 
Inch  is  eastward  from  our  track ;  Loch 
Alvie  westward.  Yonder,  upon  a  spur  of 
the  mountain,  is  a  monument  to  the  Duke 
of  Gordon.  There,  to  the  northeast,  rises 
in  a  faint  blue  cloud  the  mysterious  Cairn- 
gorm mountain  —  which  surely  never  looked 
more  beautiful  than  now.  At  Aviemore 
the  clouds  lower  and  the  mist  is  on  the 
hills,  but  in  the  sky  behind  them  there  is 


FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INVERNESS.      95 

a  Streak  of  silver.  Miles  of  moorland  suc- 
ceed. The  sky  darkens.  The  wind  is  chill. 
The  country  is  very  lonely.  If  human 
beings  are  here  they  make  but  little  sign 
of  their  presence.  One  low  cabm  we  do 
indeed  discern,  —  a  mantle  of  green  velvet 
moss  upon  its  roof  and  many  hens  roosted 
on  its  window-sills  in  disconsolate  medita- 
tion. The  river  Spey,  broad  and  lovely, 
flows  through  this  plain,  and  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach  its  gaze  lingers  lovingly  upon 
dense  masses  of  dark  green  broom,  among 
which,  erect  or  couched,  are  the  big  and 
stately  black  cattle  of  the  North.  Fine 
gleams  of  sunshine  fall  suddenly,  now  and 
then,  out  of  the  gray  sky,  and  rifts  of  won- 
derfully brilliant  blue  shine  through  the 
sombre  rack  of  the  storm.  ^More  and  more 
we  delight  in  the  burnies  that  gleam  like 
threads  of  silver  on  the  hill-sides  and  bicker 
into  foam  and  music  as  they  come  dashing 
through  the  plain.  The  clouds  threaten 
but  the  landscape  smiles.  Near  at  hand 
is  shadow,  but  far  away  the  sunshine  falls 
upon  a  yeUow  field  amid  the  blue-green  of 
the  fir-trees  and  seems  to  make  a  glory  over 
half  the  visible  world. 

It  is  the  land  of  Macbeth  through  which 
we    have    been    speeding,  —  ' '  from    Fife, 


96      rilOM  EDINHUlUill  TO  INNHRNKSS. 

great  king,'' — and  at  many  a  place  upon 
those  desolate,  rock-strewn  moors  of  peat 
and  heather  the  Shakespeare-lover  has 
seen  the  "blasted  heath,"  the  storm-clouds 
hanging  low,  fantastic  masses  of  mist  drift- 
ing over  the  wet  earth,  Macbeth  and  Ban- 
quo  with  their  marching  forces,  and  the 
dim  shapes  of  the  three  Weird  Sisters  glid- 
ing upon  the  haunted  air.  It  was  toward 
Forres  that  the  victors  were  making,  on 
that  day  of  destiny  when  first  the  deadly 
purpose  in  the  heart  of  Macbeth  took  form 
and  voice  in  the  evil  angels  who  thencefor- 
ward were  to  lead  him  to  his  doom.  We 
make  toward  Forres  now.  The  sun,  be- 
neath dark  clouds  in  the  west,  is  sending 
down  shafts  of  light  upon  a  fertile  valley, 
the  harvest  in  sheaves,  the  yellow  fields  of 
oats,  the  cattle  in  pasture  and  the  sheep  in 
fold  ;  while  the  cold  wind,  sweeping  over  a 
woodland  of  birch  and  fir,  is  sweeter  than 
honey.  Forres  next  —  a  cleanly  stone  town 
with  a  cone-capped  tower  in  the  middle 
of  it ;  a  place  that  is  ample  in  popula- 
tion, active  in  enterprise,  and  abundantly 
possessed  of  the  rewards  of  industry  and 
thrift.  At  Brodie,  looking  across  harvest 
fields  and  a  low  growth  of  firs,  we  see  the 
glimmer  of  gray  and  leaden  water  and  so 


FROM  EDINBURGH  TO  INVERNE.SS.      97 

catch  our  first  glimpse  of  the  Moray  Firth. 
A  little  while,  and  we  look  upon  the  fine 
gray  spires  of  Nairn,  and  see  the  Moray 
like  a  narro^\ing  river,  and  beyond  it  the 
bald,  round  mountains  of  Caithness,  range 
beyond  range,  disappearing  in  the  angry 
northern  sky.  Westward  a  narrow  water- 
fall of  light,  falling  from  a  dense  bank  of 
slate-coloured  clouds,  illumines  a  little 
river,  the  garments  that  are  bleaching  on 
the  copious  bushes  of  the  broom,  the  level 
lands  of  peat  and  heather,  and  the  hard, 
white  roads  that  wind  away  toward  Dal- 
cross  and  Culloden.  A  mighty  flock  of  sea- 
mews  momentarily  darkens  the  air,  and  we 
can  hear  their  quick,  sharp  cries,  and 
almost  the  whirring  rustle  of  their  innumer- 
able wings.  The  day  is  done,  —  a  long  and 
lovely  day  of  poetic  pageant  and  unalloyed 
delight,  —  and  just  as  streaks  of  gold  under 
layers  of  blue  and  lead  declare  the  sunset 
we  see  the  gray  battlements  and  towers  of 
our  desired  haven,  and  glide  to  our  rest  in 
the  bosom  of  Inverness. 


98  THE  FiKLi)  OF  cullodp:n. 


IX. 


TlIK    FIELD    OF    CFLI.ODKN. 

IT^ASTWARI)  from  Inverness,  on  tlie  way 
-^  to  Culloden,  the  road  at  first  skirts  the 
southern  shore  of  the  Moray  Firth,  and  the 
traveller  driving  on  it  sees  a  broad  reach  of 
shining  water  over  which  the  sea-mews  sport, 
and  beyond  it  the  bleak  hills  of  Caithness, 
sleeping  solitary  in  the  sun.  Soon  the 
track  bends  southerly  and  then  east  again, 
and  finally,  passing  beneath  an  arch  of 
sumptuous  beeches,  it  climbs  the  long 
hill-slope  toward  Drummossie  Moor.  The 
hedges  on  both  its  sides  are  filled  with  hips 
and  haws  and  with  the  lovely  blue-bells  of 
Scotland,  and  from  many  a  neighbouring 
glade  of  fir  and  birch  sounds  the  clear, 
delicious  call  of  the  tiirostle,  —  turning  the 
crisp  air  to  music  and  filling  the  heart  with 
grateful  joy  that  this  world  should  be  so 
beautiful.  Yonder  on  the  hill  is  a  massive 
gray  tower,  venerable  with  antiquity  and 
stained  as  only  time  could  stain  it  with  the 


THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEN.  99 

moss  and  lichen  of  age.  Near  at  hand  is 
the  more  humble  dwelling  of  a  cottager — 
decked  with  clematis  and  marigold.  A  sin- 
gle rook,  poised  upon  the  extreme  topmost 
spike  of  a  tall  pine-tree,  looks  down  upon 
the  wide  green  fields,  thick  sewn  with  yel- 
low flowers  of  the  colt's-foot,  and  croaks 
with  comfort.  The  warm  sun  is  riding 
high  in  the  cloudless  blue  of  heaven  and 
every  wind  is  hushed.  I  could  not  have 
found  a  day  of  greater  peace  in  which  to 
gaze  on  a  most  desolate  and  pathetic  scene 
of  buried  war.  The  first  mtimation  that 
you  receive  of  the  battlefield  is  a  gTay  rock 
at  the  roadside,  directing  attention  to  a 
couple  of  stone  cottages  in  the  adjacent 
field,  —  inscribed  with  the  words,  "  King's 
stables :  station  of  the  English  cavalry,  after 
the  battle  of  Culloden."  The  immediate 
approach  to  the  centre  of  the  field  is  made 
through  a  grove  of  pine-trees,  with  which 
Duncan  Forbes,  Laird  of  Culloden, — gen- 
erously considerate  of  a  cause  to  which  his 
famous  ancestor.  Lord  President  Forbes, 
was  inveterately  hostile,  —  has  caused  it  to 
be  surrounded.  You  reach  it  almost  before 
you  are  aware  of  its  presence,  and  your 
heart  must  be  hard  indeed  if  you  can  look 
upon  it  without  emotion.    No  spot  that  ever 


lOO  THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEN. 

I  have  seen  so  melts  the  soul  with  desola- 
tion and  awe.  I  had  been  told  that  there 
is  but  little  at  Culhxlen ;  and  in  the  sense 
of  mere  prose  this  may  be  true.  There  is  a 
large  oval  gi'assy  plain,  thickly  strewn  with 
small  stones.  On  one  side  of  it  there  is  a 
lofty  circular  cairn.  On  the  other  side 
there  is  an  irregular  line  of  low,  rough 
rocks,  to  mark  the  sepulchres  of  the  clans 
that  died  in  this  place,  —  brave  victims  of  a 
merciless  massacre,  heroic  realities  of  loyal 
love,  vainly  sacrificed  for  a  dubious  cause 
and  a  weak  leader.  That  is  all.  But  to  the 
eyes  of  the  spirit  that  lonely  moorland,  — 
once  populous  with  heroes,  now  filled  with 
their  mouldering  bones,  —  is  forever  hal- 
low'ed  and  glorious  with  the  pageant  of 
moral  valour,  the  devotion  and  the  grandeur 
and  the  fearless  fidelity  of  men  who  were 
content  to  perish  for  what  they  loved.  I 
stood  there  a  long  time,  in  humble  medita- 
tion. The  faint  white  ghost  of  the  half- 
moon  was  visible  in  the  western  sky  and 
the  place  was  so  still  that  I  could  hear  the 
buzzing  of  flies  in  the  air.  No  voice  broke 
the  sacred  silence,  and  from  the  neighbour- 
ing grove  of  pines  no  whisper  floated  — 
though  at  a  distance  I  could  see  their  pen- 
dant  tassels  just  swayed,  and  nothing  more, 


THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEX.  lOI 

by  the  gentle  autumn  wind.  "Words  have 
their  power ;  but  it  is  not  in  the  power  of 
any  words  of  mine  to  paint  the  noble  solem- 
nity of  that  scene  or  to  express  the  sublimity 
of  its  spirit. 

The  battle  of  Culloden  was  an  imequal 
battle,  and  the  issue  of  it  seems  to  have 
been  for  only  a  few  moments  in  doubt. 
The  Highlanders  —  weakened  by  hunger 
and  want  of  sleep,  wearied  by  a  long  and 
useless  night-march,  and  most  unfit  for 
battle  —  were  largely  outnumbered.  The 
English  artillery,  strongly  placed  on  a  long 
ridge  of  the  moor,  mowed  them  like  stubble. 
They  swarmed  from  the  hills  on  the  west 
and  the  south  ;  but  in  the  face  of  the  Eng- 
lish batteries  their  impetuosity  was  their 
ruin.  Their  first  charge  did  indeed  break  the 
left  wing  of  the  first  of  the  three  English  lines 
that  had  been  arrayed  against  them  ;  and  if 
the  Macdonalds  had  reinforced  that  charge 
the  final  result  might  have  been  different ; 
but  the  Macdonalds  had  been  denied  the 
place  of  honour,  and  they  refused  to  lift  a 
hand.  It  is  an  old  story  now.  The  Duke 
of  Cumberland  had  commanded  that  no  life 
should  be  spared,  and  when  the  massacre 
began  men  were  shot  down  in  droves.  One 
spot  on  the  moor  is  marked  "The  Well  of 


102  TlIK    I'lKLI)    OK    CUJ.I.ODKX. 

tlit^  Dead."  There  the  slaughter  was  fiercest 
and  bloodiest.  The  Chief  of  the  Magillivray 
fell  there,  and  the  rude  lettering  on  that 
rough  rock  commemorates  one  of  the  bravest 
men  that  ever  met  a  foe.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  at  epitaph  or  mortuary  recital- 
Each  rock  of  sepulchre  bears  simply  the 
name  of  the  clan  that  v^^as  buried  around 
and  beneath  it, — Clan  Fraser,  Clan  Mackin- 
tosh, Clan  Cameron,  Clan  Stuart  of  Alpin, 
Clans  Macgillivray,  Maclean,  and  Maclach- 
lan,  and  the  Athole  Highlanders, — those, 
with  the  Mixed  Clans,  make  up  this  roll  of 
honour,  that  neither  change  nor  detraction 
can  tarnish  nor  time  forget. 

The  Cairn  of  Culloden,  erected  in  1858, 
suits  the  place  as  no  other  form  of  monu- 
ment could  suit  it.  Rugged  truth  and 
homely  simplicity  are  its  characteristic  at- 
tributes. It  is  a  circular  tower,  about  thirty 
feet  high  and  about  ten  feet  in  diameter. 
It  consists  of  twelve  rows  of  heavy,  irregular 
stones,  laid  without  mortar,  but  welded 
with  layers  of  slate.  Upon  the  corner- 
stone, at  the  south  side,  is  sculptured  the 
commemorative  record  :  "culloden.  1746. 
E.  p.  FECIT.  1858."  The  top  is  flat,  and  on 
it  is  a  wild  growth  of  flowers  and  grass. 
A  tall  slab,  set  at  the  base  of  its  east  front 


THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEN.  I03 

and  protected  by  an  iron  gi'ill  of  pointed 
sliafts,  bears  tliis  inscription  : 

THE    BATTLE 

OF    CULLODEX 

WAS    FOUGHT    ON    THIS    MOOR 

16th    APRIL,     1746. 

THE    GRAVES    OF    THE 

GALLAXT    HIGHLANDERS 

WHO    FOUGHT    FOR 

SCOTLAND   AND    PRINCE    CHARLIE 

ARE    MARKED    BY    THE    NAMES 

OF    THEIR    CLANS. 

Drummossie  Moor  extends  for  about  six 
miles  along  this  region.  It  was  vacant  and 
treeless  in  the  wild  days  of  the  Pretender, 
but  in  later  times  some  of  it  has  been  cul- 
tivated and  much  of  it  has  been  reclaimed 
and  inclosed  for  pasture  land.  In  a  meadow 
east  of  the  cairn,  called  '•  The  Field  of  the 
English,"  are  buried  the  soldiers  of  Cum- 
berland who  perished  in  that  terrible  fight. 
Still  further  east,  and  at  a  point  that  com- 
mands a  comprehensive,  magnificent  view 
of  the  moor,  the  valley,  and  the  southern 
hills  beyond  it,  stands  a  large,  almost  flat 
rock,  marking  the  position  of  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  on  the  day  of  the  battle  —  and 
now  inscribed  with  his  execrated  name. 


104  I'lIK    FIELD    OF    CILI.ODFX. 

Upon  that  rock  you  may  climb,  and  as  you 
stand  there  and  gaze  over  the  green,  heather- 
spangled  waste,  —  seeing  no  motion  any- 
where save  of  a  wandering  sheep  or  a  drift- 
ing cloud,  and  hearing  no  sound  except  the 
occasional  cawing  of  a  distant  rook,  — your 
imagination  will  conjure  up  the  scene  of  that 
tremendous  onset  and  awful  carnage  in 
which  the  last  hope  of  the  Stuart  was 
broken  and  the  star  of  his  destiny  went 
down  forever.  Here  floated  the  royal 
standard  of  England  and  here  were  ranged 
her  serried  cohorts  and  her  shining  guns. 
There,  on  the  hill-slopes,  flashed  the  ban- 
ners of  the  Highland  clans.  Everywhere 
this  placid  moor  —  now  brown  and  pui-ple 
in  the  slumberous  autumn  light  —  was  bril- 
liant with  the  scarlet  and  the  tartan  and 
with  the  burnished  steel  of  naked  weapons 
gleaming  under  the  April  sky.  Drums 
rolled  and  trumpets  blared  and  the  boom 
of  cannon  mingled  in  horrid  discord  with 
the  wild  screech  of  bagpipes  and  the  fierce 
Highland  yell  ;  and  so  the  intrepid  followers 
of  Koyal  Charlie  rushed  onward  to  their 
death.  The  world  knows  well  enough  now 
—  seeing  what  he  became,  and  in  what  man- 
ner he  lived  and  died  —  that  he  was  un- 
worthy of  the  love  that  followed  him  and  of 


THE    FIELD    OF    CULLODEN.  I05 

the  blood  that  was  shed  in  his  cause.  The 
student  of  politics  may  wisely  instruct  us 
now  that  a  victory  at  Culloden  for  the  House 
of  Stuart  might  have  meant  the  restoration 
of  the  Koman  Catholic  church  to  its  old  su- 
premacy over  Great  Britain,  and  thus  might 
have  set  back  the  kingdom  to  the  iron 
days  of  Henry  VII.  But  when  Culloden 
was  fought  Charles  Edward  Stuart  was 
still,  in  Scottish  minds,  the  gallant  young 
prince  unjustly  kept  from  his  own,  and  the 
clans  of  Scotland,  never  yet  pledged  to  the 
Union,  were  rallied  around  their  rightful 
king.  Both  democracy  and  religion  may 
exult  now,  that  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
was  the  victor  ;  but,  standing  on  that  grave 
of  valour,  with  every  voice  of  romance 
whispering  at  his  heart,  the  sympathy  of 
the  pilgrim  is  with  the  prince  that  was  a 
fugitive,  the  cause  that  was  lost,  and  the 
heroes  who  died  for  it  —  and  died  in  vain. 
I  thought  of  Campbell's  great  poem  of 
LochieVs  Warning, — which  first  fired  my 
heart  when  I  was  a  schoolboy,  —  and  as  I 
recalled  its  full  and  fervid  lines  I  was  con- 
fu'med  in  the  conviction  that  not  in  any  lan- 
guage among  men  was  there  ever  achieved 
a  more  eloquent,  passionate,  sublime,  and 
therefore  altogether  poetic  commemoration 


Io6  THE    FIELD    OF    CrLLODF.X. 

of  a  great  national  event.  To  think  of  it 
there  was  to  place  upon  knowledge  the  crown 
of  inspiration  ;  and  to  have  had  the  privi- 
lege of  recalling  it  amid  the  scene  which  it 
portrays  will  be  a  cause  for  gratitude  as 
long  as  I  live. 

Note.  —  The  position  occupied  by  Charles 
Edward  at  the  battle  was  uuder  a  tree,  still 
called  Prince  Charlie's  Tree.  Culloden  House, 
the  manor  of  Lord  President  Forbes,  stands  a 
mile  north  of  the  moor.  On  tlie  top  of  the 
Cundjierland  Rock  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
H.  H.  Drake,  LL.D.,  the  venerable  author  of 
the  History  of  the  Hundred  of  Blackheath, 
who  chanced  to  be  sitting  there.  At  Inverness 
I  spoke  with  Mr.  Joseph  Clegg,  a  bookseller, 
who  said  he  had  known  a  very  old  inhabitant 
who  had  pointed  out,  upon  Drummossie  Moor, 
the  exact  burial-place  of  Keppoch,  the  gigan- 
tic chief  of  the  Macdonalds,  who  fell  while 
vainly  urging  his  discontented  followers  into 
action.  Tbat  spot  the  veteran  remembered, 
because,  when  a  youth,  it  had  been  shown  to 
him  by  his  father,  a  survivor  of  Culloden 
fight :  and  persons  digging  tbere  found  the 
bones  of  a  very  large  man.  The  stones  that 
mark  the  sepulchres  of  the  several  clans  were 
erected  by  Duncan  Forbes,  Esq.,  in  1881. 


STORM-BOUND    IN    lOXA.  10/ 


X. 

STORM-BOUXD    IX    lONA. 

IONA,  IN  THE  Hebrides,  September  30, 
1891.  —  The  wanderer  who  lands  upon 
the  little  stone  ledge,  partly  natural  and 
partly  artificial,  that  serves  for  a  pier  at 
lona  should  be  prepared  to  remain  upon 
that  island  not  simply  as  long  as  he  likes 
but  as  long  as  he  must.  In  the  Hebrides 
the  weather  is  the  sovereign;  and  never 
was  there  a  sovereign  more  arbitrary,  capri- 
cious, imperious,  and  potential.  The  poet 
Longfellow,  always  felicitous  in  his  choice 
of  epithets,  never  chose  an  adjective  more 
fitly  than  when  he  designated  the  western 
islands  of  Scotland  "the  tempest-hamited 
Hebrides."  At  any  moment  the  storm- 
wind  may  sweep  over  them.  At  almost 
any  moment  it  may  cease  to  blow.  It  seems 
to  know  not  any  law  except  its  own  caprice. 
When  the  tempest  has  spent  its  fury  the 
calm  that  reigns  there  is  the  calm  of  Para- 
dise ;  but  while  the  tempest  rages  no  sail 


io8  STomr-BorxD  in  ioxa. 

can  brave  the  blast  that  beats  those  waters 
and  no  boat  ever  dreams  of  making  for  that 
perilous  shore.  The  present  pilgrim  landed 
at  lona  about  noon  on  September  25,  in- 
tending to  return  to  Oban  the  next  morn- 
ing. Five  days  have  passed,  and  there  is 
but  a  faint  prospect  of  his  escape.  Postal 
communication  with  the  mainland  —  regu- 
larly occurrent  but  once  every  forty- eight 
hours  in  fair  weather  —  has  practically 
ceased.  Telegraphic  communication  does 
not  exist.  If  MacBrayne's  steamer,  the 
gallant  and  sturdy  Grenadier^  should  come 
there  will  be  a  rescue.  If  not  there  must 
be  a  protracted  exercise  of  the  virtue  of 
patience.  Resting,  however,  in  such  a 
home-like  haven  as  the  St.  Columba  hotel, 
and  cheered  by  companionship  with  the 
kind  Highland  hearts  who  dwell  there, 
the  practice  of  patience  should  not  be 
difficult. 

It  was  neither  coarse  weather  nor  fine 
when  we  sailed  out  of  Oban.  The  sky  was 
a  dome  of  steel  and  the  morning  sun,  be- 
neath half-transparent  clouds,  was  a  disc 
of  silver.  At  one  point  the  sunrise  splen- 
dour pierced  its  sullen  veil  and  followed  us 
with  a  diamond  shaft  of  light.  The  wind 
was  fresh ;  the  sea  lively ;   and  now  and 


STORM-BOUXD    IN    lONA.  IO9 

then  there  came  a  dash  of  rain.  North- 
ward we  saw  the  rnined  tower  of  Dunolly, 
thick  hung  with  i\'j^,  and  the  black  stone 
upon  the  coast  to  which,  as  legend  loves  to 
tell,  King  Fingal  chamed  his  dog.  Far  up 
Loch  Linnhe  rose  the  huge  back  of  Ben 
Xevis,  encumbered  with  sombre  cloud. 
More  near,  upon  the  right  hand,  glistened 
the  wet  rocks  of  gray  and  lonely  Lismore  ; 
while  upon  the  left  frowned  the  iron 
shore  of  Mull.  Upon  the  heights  of  Mull 
shone  the  purple  of  heather  and  the  rich 
emerald  of  velvet  turf.  The  lighthouse 
tower  upon  Lismore  stood  out  in  bold  re- 
lief against  the  sky,  and  over  the  furtive 
rock  where  Maclean  of  Duart  bound  fair 
Ellen  of  Lorn  and  left  her  to  perish  the 
waves  were  breaking  in  wreaths  of  snowy 
foam.  All  around  were  flights  of  sea-mews, 
and  we  could  see,  in  passing,  upon  the  wide 
ascending  moors  of  Mull,  the  scattered  gray 
stone  cottages  and  the  cattle  and  sheep 
sprinkled  over  the  land.  In  the  foreground 
towered  the  iron-ribbed  mountains  of  Mor- 
ven,  dark  and  teiTible  in  their  sterile  soli- 
tude. The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Morven 
the  ghostly  mists  were  trailing  over  its 
sable  parapets  and  there  seemed  no  limit 
to  the  altitude  of  its  mysterious,  inaccessi- 


no  STORM-BOUND    IN    lONA. 

ble  heights.  This  time  its  mountain  masses 
stood  clearly  disclosed  in  their  grim  grandeur 
and  cold,  implacable  disdain.  The  course 
is  northwestward  between  Morven  and  Mull, 
and  as  we  sped  onward  past  the  pleasant 
town  of  Salen,  secure  in  its  little  bay,  the 
clouds  hung  low,  the  waves  glinnnered 
green  in  the  fitful  flashes  of  sunlight,  the 
sea-birds  screamed  their  warning,  and  upon 
both  shores  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach 
the  white  breakers  foamed  angrily  against 
dark,  riven  rocks.  At  most  times  I  should 
have  seen  those  sights  as  signs  of  impend- 
ing peril.  I  did  not  heed  them  then.  There 
are  moments  when  the  soul  exults  in  storm 
and  danger  —  blindly  feeling,  perhaps,  that 
its  fetters  are  momentarily  broken  and  its 
freedom  at  last  begun.  Besides,  Scottish 
scenery  needs  its  environment  of  tempest. 
You  want  no  gentle  breezes  nor  languorous 
lights  ;  but  the  frowning  sky,  the  chill  wind, 
and  the  drifting  mist. 

Back  of  Tobermory,  which  is  the  capital 
of  Mull,  there  was  sunshine  on  the  distant 
hills,  and  to  our  eyes,  as  we  looked  at  it 
from  the  sea,  that  ancient  Highland  town, 
winding  up  its  pleasant  terraces  on  the  side 
of  a  noble  cliff,  seemed  the  chosen  home  of 
adventure  and  romance.     Ben  More  and 


STORM-BOUND    IN    lONA.  Ill 

Ben  Talla  rose  supreme  at  distance,  bathed 
in  flying  lighit ;  but  Morven,  under  a  slate - 
coloured  pall,  was  sullen  and  cold.  Soon 
we  discerned  at  our  right  the  ruins  of 
Ardtornish,  — where  dwelt  of  old  the  Lords 
of  the  Isles,  and  where  the  genius  of  Scott 
has  caused  to  be  spoken  that  eloquent  and 
sublime  blessing  of  the  abbot  upon  royal 
Bruce  which  is  among  the  noblest  strains 
of  poetry  in  our  language.  Then,  presently, 
gaining  the  open  sea,  we  looked  all  at  once 
upon  the  Tresnish  Isles,  —  seeing  Fladda 
and  Lunga  and  Black  Mor,  which  is  the 
Dutchman's  Cap,  and  Black  Beg,  and,  far 
to  the  southward,  the  misty  outline  of  lona ; 
while  more  to  the  north  and  west  Tiree  and 
Coll,  which  are  the  haunted  lands  of  Ossian, 
lay  like  dim  clouds  on  the  horizon's  verge. 
Staffa  is  not  seen  as  early  as  you  see  lona 
when  steering  this  course,  —  which  grad- 
ually turns  southwest  and  south  after  Ard- 
namurchan  point  is  left  to  the  northward,  — 
although  it  is  nearer  to  you  ;  for  the  other 
isles  of  the  Tresnish  group  partly  hide  it ; 
but  it  soon  comes  into  view,  lying  upon  the 
lonely  ocean  like  a  long  ship,  dismasted 
and  at  rest.  All  the  world  knows  that  flat- 
topped  crag,  covered  with  brilliant  grass 
and  honeycombed  with  caverns  in  which 


113  STOIJM-HOLM)    IX    lUXA. 

only  cormorants  and  petrels  breed  and 
haunt,  while  ocean  listens  to  its  own  solemn 
and  tremendous  music,  whether  of  calm  or 
storm.  We  did  not  attempt  to  land,  for  the 
sea  had  risen  and  the  place  was  dangerous  ; 
but  our  boat  steamed  along  the  south  side 
of  the  island,  and  we  gazed  into  Fingal's 
Cave  and  into  Mackinnon's  and  looked  long 
and  wistfully  at  those  mysterious  basalt 
columns  which  make  a  temjjle  for  the  wor- 
ship of  nature,  far  grander  than  any  crea- 
tion of  the  hand  of  man.  On  a  previous 
occasion  I  had  landed  and  explored  the 
caves  ;  and  it  is  always  wise,  when  any 
form  of  experience  has  entirely  filled  and 
satisfied  the  soul,  not  to  attempt  its  repeti- 
tion. The  visitor  to  Staffa  finds  a  sufficient 
pathway,  artfully  contrived,  along  the  face 
of  the  cliff,  and  a  rail  by  which  to  sustain 
himself,  so  that  he  can  enter  Fingal's  Cave 
and  walk  nearly  to  the  end  of  its  cathedral 
arch  and  gaze  upward  at  its  groined  vault 
of  petrified  pendant  lava,  and  downward 
into  its  black  transparent  depths  where 
only  the  monsters  of  ocean  have  their  lair. 
It  is  a  solemn  and  awful  place,  and  you 
behold  it  without  words  and  leave  it  in 
silence  ;  but  your  backward  look  remains 
long  fixed  upon  it,  and  its  living  picture  of 


STOEM-BOUND    IX    lOXA.  II3 

gloom  and  glory  will  never  fade  out  of 
your  mind.  We  sailed  away  from  Staffa 
over  a  rough  and  angry  sea  —  but  no  one 
thought  of  it.  The  course  is  southerly,  with 
the  great  island  of  Mull  upon  the  left  hand, 
lona  exactly  ahead,  and  eighteen  miles 
distant  in  the  solitary  western  ocean  the 
lighthouse  on  Skerrj'vore.  We  passed  Loch- 
na-Keal,  which  nearly  divides  Mull,  and  saw 
at  its  mouth  Gometra  and  Ulva,  and,  south 
of  them,  Little  Colonsay.  It  is  to  Ulva  that 
the  hapless  lovers  would  speed,  in  CampbeH's 
fine  poem  of  Lord  Ullin's  Daughter.  Gom- 
etra is  the  nearest  land  to  Staffa,  and  it  is 
from  Gometra  that  the  boatmen  row  out, 
in  their  life-boat,  to  carry  visitors  from  the 
steamer  to  the  isle  of  caves,  on  days  when 
it  is  possible  to  land.  Their  boat  was  no- 
where on  the  waters  as  we  passed,  and  that 
again  should  have  been  an  omen  ;  but  I  was 
destined  more  and  more  to  learn  that  the 
fascination  of  lona  will  not  be  baffled  and 
cannot  be  opposed. 

lona  Sound  is  only  one  mile  wide  ;  but 
it  lies  nearly  north  and  south  ;  the  an- 
chorage ground  in  it  is  uncertain  and  un- 
safe ;  and,  under  the  stress  of  a  westerly 
gale,  the  fierce  waters  of  the  Atlantic  ocean 
pour  through  it  in  one  solid  torrent  of  irre- 

H 


114  STOKM-BOUNl)    IX    lOXA. 

«istible  force  and  fury.  On  both  sides, 
%vith  but  scant  exception,  the  shore  is 
fringed  ^vith  rock.  On  the  Mull  coast  that 
rock  is  generally  a  precipice.  No  splendour 
of  the  horrible  could  exceed  the  horrid 
grandeur  of  that  iron  shore  —  that  gi'ini  and 
terrible  battlement  ^Yllich  confronts  and 
defies  the  savage  sea,  from  Kintra  around 
most  part  of  the  Ross  of  Mull.  Toward  the 
southwest  corner  of  Mull  the  Sound  of 
Erraid  pours  its  tides  into  the  Sound  of 
lona,  parting  Erraid  island  from  the  larger 
isle.  The  southwest  corner  of  EiTaid  marks 
the  end  of  lona  Sound  ;  and  not  on  all  that 
perilous  coast  is  there  any  other  spot  so  full 
of  peril.  Here  are  the  Tonanen  Eocks,  — 
the  Otter,  Erasiers,  and  the  West  Keef,  — 
and  here,  during  days  of  almost  unprece- 
dented tempest,  watching  them  for  hours 
and  hours,  have  I  seen  great  domes  of 
water,  foaming  upward  fifty  feet  into  the 
air  and  gleaming  perfectly  black  against  the 
livid  sky.  It  was  toward  the  time  of  sunset 
on  Friday  (September  25)  that  the  storm 
finally  broke  upon  us  ;  and  from  that  mo- 
ment onward,  with  but  little  pause,  it  has 
continued  to  rage.  Such  a  succession  of 
westerly  gales  has  seldom  been  known 
upon  this  coast.     Such  a  glory  of  tempest 


STORM-BOUND    IX    lONA.  II5 

surely  was  never  surpassed  anywhere.  All 
the  night  of  Friday  the  wind  moaned  and 
howled  around  our  little  habitation,  as  with 
the  many  threatening  voices  of  hungry  and 
baffled  beasts  ;  all  night  the  rain  was  driven 
in  tumbling  sheets  against  our  windows  ; 
and  all  night  I  heard,  in  the  darkness,  the 
long  roar  of  the  clamorous,  resounding  sea. 
At  morning,  and  at  various  other  times  dur- 
ing Saturday,  there  was  sunshine,  —  fitfully 
commingled  with  cloud  and  rain,  —  but  at 
no  moment  was  there  a  lull  in  the  gale  ; 
and  when  at  noon  I  looked  out  upon  the 
Sound  its  great  waves  were  rolling  north- 
ward along  its  whole  extent,  in  one  regular 
incessant  procession  of  livid  green  ridges, 
each  reaching  almost  from  shore  to  shore 
and  each  mantled  with  an  ermine  crest. 
No  boat  could  have  lived  a  moment  in  such 
a  sea.  That  night  suddenly  the  wind  fell, 
the  sky  cleared,  the  air  grew  soft  and 
balmy,  the  stars  came  out  innumerable  and 
glorious  in  the  vast,  dark  vault  of  heaven, 
and  even  the  ocean  curbed  its  anger  and 
changed  its  hollow  roar  to  a  soft  and  solemn 
dirge.  The  sailors  know  this  habit  of  the 
gale  and  are  not  deceived  by  it  ;  the  storm 
has  paused  to  catch  its  breath.  Most  of 
Smiday  that  deceitful  calm  continued,  and 


Il6  STORM-BOUND    IX    lONA. 

no  spot  of  earth  ever  looked  more  fair  than 
lonely  and  beautiful  lona,  —  silent  then, 
save  for  the  sound  of  Sabbath  bells  niinirk-d 
with  the  murmur  of  the  many-coloured, 
nuisical  sea.  Late  at  evening,  walking  over 
the  moors  which  are  at  the  south  of  the 
island,  I  heard  a  sudden  sharp  note  in  the 
southern  blast,  and  knew  that  a  change  was 
at  hand.  By  midnight  the  wind  was  moan- 
ing in  the  chimney  and  whistling  in  shrill 
puffs  through  every  cranny  of  the  house, 
and  -as  we  lay  awake  in  our  anxious  beds 
we  could  hear  the  swirl  of  rain,  and  from 
every  quarter  the  horrid  crash  of  breakers 
on  the  rocks.  The  morning  of  Monday 
dawned  brightly,  but  it  soon  darkened,  and 
all  day  long  there  was  an  alternation  of 
shadow  and  sunshine,  —  now  black  clouds 
and  sudden  bursts  of  drenching  rain,  now  a 
twilight  of  silver  mist  which  sometimes 
turned  to  glittering  rainbows  over  the  stormy 
Sound,  —  but  never  was  there  a  pause  in 
the  violence  of  the  gale.  In  some  hours  of 
the  ensuing  night  the  moon  cast  her  mantle 
of  silver  upon  the  raging  waters,  giving 
them  a  new  beauty  even  in  their  wrath  and 
menace.  It  is  a  long  time,  though,  since  I 
ceased  to  trust  the  moon,  and  I  did  not 
trust  her  then.      The   niuht-wind   in   the 


STORM-BOUND    IN    lONA.  II7 

chimney  was  a  better  monitor,  and  of  that 
night- wind  in  the  chimney  of  lona  I  shall 
carry  the  memory  to  my  dying  day.  Its 
prophetic  note  was  amply  justified  by  the 
continued  storm  of  Tuesday  —  less  violent, 
perhaps,  but  not  less  effective.  Often,  that 
day,  did  I  climb  upon  Maclean's  cross, 
which  stands  on  the  causeway  by  the  nun- 
nery ruins,  and  there  question  the  ocean, 
now  one  way  and  now  another,  for  the  ap- 
proach of  any  boat ;  but  the  colossal  break- 
ers on  the  Torranen  rocks,  seen  though  inau- 
dible, were  all  my  answer.  That  day,  also, 
climbing  to  the  windy  summit  of  Dun-i 
(which  is  the  highest  mountain  on  this 
island),  I  looked  forth  to  the  terrible  crags 
that  gird  its  bay  upon  the  west,  and  saw 
Cabbach  island,  and  Dite,  and  Musinal, 
white  with  the'  flying  shrouds  of  shattered 
breakers,  and  the  spouting  cave  in  action, 
hurling  its  snowy  column  far  into  the  air, 
to  fall  in  a  cataract  of  silver.  It  is  a  cruel 
shore,  look  at  it  from  what  point  you  will. 
Early  this  morning  I  was  on  the  most  placid 
part  of  it  that  I  have  found,  —  the  Martyrs' 
Bay,  —  but  even  there  the  sullen  waves 
were  storming  up  the  beach  and  strewing 
its  hard  white  sands  with  long,  serpent- 
like grasses  and  with  many  sinister  shapes 


II.S  STOKM-lJOl'M)    IN    lONA. 

of  the  brown  and  wrinkled  and  «liniy  weeds 
of  the  sea.  To  that  beach,  in  ancient  days, 
came  many  a  train  of  funeral  barges,  with 
muffled  banners  and  with  coronach,  bring- 
ing home  dead  kings  of  Scotland,  for  burial 
in  the  Holy  Isle.  Over  those  white  sands 
was  borne  the  mangled  body  of  "  the 
gracious  Duncan,"  who  rests  by  Oran's 
chapel,  in  yonder  field  ;  and  not  long  after- 
ward, as  many  believe,  was  brought  the 
ravaged  corse  of  his  cruel  murderer,  to 
sleep  beside  him  in  the  same  royal  sepul- 
chre. Duncan  and  Macbeth  side  by  side, 
and  the  grass  growing  over  them,  and  the 
wild  sea-birds  screaming  above  their  name- 
less rest  ! 

Such  an  opportunity  for  minute  observa- 
tion of  this  remarkable  island  is  not  likely 
to  occur  again,  and  whether  in  storm  or 
calm,  it  has  not  been  neglected.  Standing 
upon  the  summit  of  Dun-i  the  w^anderer 
looks  northward  to  the  hook-like  point  of 
lona  and  its  wide  curves  of  yellow  beach 
where  the  white  breakers  are  sporting  in 
their  dance  of  death.  Mysterious  Staffa, 
in  the  northern  distance,  is  distinctly  visi- 
ble. Eastward,  across  the  sw-ift  and  raging 
channel,  are  the  swarthy  rocks  of  Mull, 
with   the   treeless   mountains  of  Mull  and 


STORM-BOUND    IX    lONA.  II9 

Morven  towering  beyond  them,  blended  in 
one  colossal  heap  of  chaotic  splendour.  In 
the  west  is  the  wild  Atlantic,  breaking  along 
the  whole  three  miles  of  crag  and  beach 
that  make  lona's  outmost  coast.  In  the 
foreground  of  the  southern  prospect  is  a 
spine  of  rock-ribbed  hill,  beyond  and  around 
which  the  land  shelves  downward  into 
levels,  toward  the  encircling  sea.  More 
distant  in  the  south  the  steeps  once  more 
ascend,  presenting  a  wide,  broken  surface 
of  lonely  moorland,  covered  with  rock  and 
heather,  in  which  the  shaggy  black  and 
brown  cattle,  with  their  wide- spreading 
horns  and  their  great,  luminous,  beautiful 
eyes,  couch  or  stray,  in  indolent  composure. 
At  the  extreme  southern  point  the  isle  pre- 
sents a  lofty  crescent  headland  of  riven 
rock,  —  each  cleft  a  dark  ravine,  and  each 
declining  crag  margined  at  its  base  with 
cruel,  jagged  points,  like  iron  teeth.  All 
that  savage  scene,  in  one  comprehensive 
glance,  the  gazer  from  Dun-i  may  gather 
into  his  vision  ;  and  whether  he  regards  it 
as  nature  in  her  naked  glory,  or  as  the 
holy  ground  that  religion  has  hallowed  with 
her  blessing  and  history  has  covered  with 
the  garlands  of  deathless  renown,  he  cannot 
look  upon  it  unmoved,  and  he  can  never 


120  STOlJM-lJOrxn    IX   iona. 

forget  either  its  iiiagnificeiit  aspect  or  its 
illustrious  meaning. 

Iona  is  three  miles  long,  and  at  its  widest 
point  a  mile  and  a  half  wide,  and  it  con- 
tains about  two  thousand  acres  of  land,  of 
which  about  a  quarter  is  under  cultivation  — 
for  oats,  hay,  vegetables,  and  flowers.  Three- 
quarters  of  it  are  devoted  to  pasture.  There 
are  within  its  limits,  of  cattle,  horses,  sheep, 
and  other  animals,  about  a  thousand.  1'he 
collie  dog  and  the  household  cat  are  fre- 
quently encountered,  and  you  will  not  stroll 
far  upon  the  moors  without  meeting  the 
dark  and  stately  Highland  bull.  I  counted 
about  fifty  dwellings.  The  population  is 
small.  The  minister  of  Iona,  the  Kev. 
Archibald  JNIacmillan,  whose  friendly  ac- 
quaintance I  had  the  pleasure  and  privilege 
to  gain,  told  me  that  his  parish  —  which 
comprises  Iona  and  a  section  of  the  western 
end  of  the  Ross  of  Mull  —  contains  about 
five  hundred  and  fifteen  persons,  of  whom 
about  three  hundred  dwell  in  Mull.  The 
church  is  the  l*resbyterian  church  of  Scot- 
land, but  there  is  also  a  free  church.  One 
of  the  buildings  is  the  manse.  Another  is 
the  schoolhouse.  All  the  houses  are  made 
of  stone  and  some  of  them  have  a  roof  of 
thatch  which  is  held  in  its  place  by  clamps. 


STOIIM-BOUXD    IX    ION  A.  121 

superincumbent  timbers,  and  heavy  weights 
of  stone  or  iron.  There  are  two  hotels,  — 
one,  the  St.  Columba,  kept  by  Captain 
Kitchie ;  the  other,  the  Argyll  Arms,  kept 
by  John  Macdonald  —  the  official  guide  to 
lona,  as  his  father  was  before  him.  The 
crofters,  all  of  whom  are  prosperous,  live 
in  little  stone  cottages,  rarely  more  than 
one  story  high.  The  village  consists  of  a 
single  street,  with  those  humble  huts  ranged 
upon  one  side  of  it — their  doors  and  win- 
dows facing  eastward  toward  the  Sound. 
The  postoffice  is  also  a  shop,  and  there  are 
two  or  three  shops  beside.  Three  times 
a  week  a  little  steamboat,  sailing  out  of 
Bunessan, — a  tow^n  of  Mull,  sheltered  in 
Loch-na-Keal,  —  calls  at  lona,  if  she  can, 
and  takes  away  a  mail,  and  leaves  one, — 
touching,  by  means  of  a  skiff,  at  St.  Ronan's 
Bay.  The  settled  part  of  lona  is  a  slope 
upon  its  eastern  shore,  not  distant  from 
the  northern  extremity  —  a  region  protected 
by  the  hills  from  those  westerly  and  south- 
erly winds  that  are  the  scourge  of  the  island. 
There  are  only  a  few  roads,  but  the  pedes- 
trian may  readily  make  his  way  almost 
anywhere,  without  fear  of  trespass.  The 
inhabitants  are  generally  religious  and  are 
orderly,  courteous,  and  gentle.     No  doctor 


122  STORM-BOUND    IX    lOXA. 

dwells  in  the  place  and  no  resident  of  it  is 
ever  sick.  Death  may  come  by  drowning 
or  by  other  accident,  but  as  a  rule,  the 
people  live  until  they  are  worn  out,  and  so 
expire,  naturally,  from  extreme  age.  The 
Gaelic  language,  although  it  is  dying  away 
in  the  Highlands,  is  still  spoken  here.  The 
minister,  preaching  on  alternate  Sundays 
at  lona  and  at  Bunessan,  speaks  in  Eng- 
lish first,  and  then  repeats  his  discourse  in 
Gaelic,  or  he  reverses  that  order,  —  and  for 
both  sermons  he  has  an  audience.  It  was 
my  good  fortune  to  hear  him  on  September 
27,  together  with  about  fifty  other  persons, 
seated  on  wooden  benches  in  a  whitewashed 
room,  and  I  have  never  heard  a  preacher 
more  devout,  earnest,  sincere,  and  simple. 
The  school  is  largely  followed,  — the  present 
attendance  now  being  nearly  seventy  pupils, 
—  and  in  the  schoolhouse  I  found  a  library 
of  nearly  five  hundred  volumes  (there  are 
four  hundred  and  fifteen  titles  in  the  cata- 
logue), collected  partly  through  the  friendly 
ministrations  of  the  Rev.  Leigh  Richmond, 
who  visited  lona  in  1820,  and  partly  con- 
tributed by  Mr.  Thomas  Cook,  of  London, 
the  organizer  of  Cook's  Tours.  Shake- 
speare, Scott,  Macaulay,  Hume,  Smollett, 
Tytler,    Dickens,  Sydney   Smith,  Cowper, 


STORM-BOUND    IX    lOXA.  1 23 

John  Wilson,  and  J.  R.  Green,  are  among 
the  authors  represented.  Several  volumes 
of  Cook's  Voyages  are  there,  and  so  are 
ten  volumes  of  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia. 
Many  sermons,  however,  appear  in  that 
collection,  together  with  many  tomes  of  the 
order  of  the  everlasting  Josephus  —  whom 
everybody  venerates  and  nobody  reads. 
Among  the  benefactors  to  the  lona  Library 
are  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  Dwyer ;  G.  Gallic,  of 
Glasgow ;  A.  Philp,  of  Bute  ;  F.  Clapp,  of 
Exeter ;  Rev.  G.  E.  W.  Munby,  of  Turvey ; 
Miss  Copeland,  of  Dumfries  ;  Miss  Roberts ; 
and  the  directors  of  the  Scottish  Temper- 
ance League.  No  newspaper  is  published 
at  lona,  but  there  is  a  little  printing-office 
near  the  St.  Columba  hotel,  and  from  that 
germ  may  be  expected,  one  day  or  another, 
such  practical  growth  of  enterprise  and  of 
civilising  thought  as  follows  in  the  track  of 
a  wisely  ordered  press.  The  Presbyterian 
house  of  worship  was  built  in  1830,  and  it 
is  a  primitive  sort  of  structure,  now  much 
dilapidated;  but  in  every  attribute  that 
should  appertain  to  the  character  of  a 
clergj'man  its  minister  would  do  honour  to 
the  finest  church  in  the  kingdom.  lona  is 
owned  by  the  Duke  of  Arg\il,  to  whose 
family  it  was  granted  by  Charles  I.    Before 


124  STORM-BOUND    IX    lOXA. 

tliat  time  it  had  long  been  held  by  the 
cliieftains  of  the  gi'eat  house  of  Maclean. 
When  Dr.  Johnson  came  here,  with  Bos- 
well,  in  1773,  Maclean  was  their  companion, 
—  then  the  lord  of  the  clan, — and  both 
Johnson  and  Boswell  have  borne  fervent 
testimony  to  the  unstinted  hospitality  with 
which  they  were  received,  notwithstanding 
that  the  Campbells  were  in  possession  of 
the  land.  The  sturdy  doctor  was  obliged, 
indeed,  to  sleep  on  the  hay  in  a  barn,  with 
his  portmanteau  for  a  pillow  ;  but  that  was 
the  best  accommodation  attainable  in  the 
island,  and  the  Maclean  slept  beside  him. 
There  is  greater  comfort  to  be  found  in 
lona  now,  but  there  is  no  luxury.  Nor  is 
this  a  place  for  luxury.  Here  you  are  cut 
off  from  the  world.  Here  you  are  alone. 
Here  you  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
eternity.  Here,  accordingly,  if  anywhere 
on  earth,  the  mind  would  be  inspired,  the 
heart  would  be  clean,  and  life  w^ould  be 
simple  and  pure.  On  one  of  those  storni- 
stricken  days  I  stood  alone  upon  the  Hill 
of  Angels  and  looked  off  at  the  grim  deso- 
lation of  the  dark  Atlantic  plain  ;  and  I 
could  not  wonder,  as  I  felt  the  overwhelm- 
ing solitude  and  grandeur  of  the  place,  at 
the  old  superstitious  belief  that  when  St. 


STORM-BOUND    IN    lOXA.  I25 

Columba  stood  there,  thirteen  centuries 
ago,  the  white-robed  beings  of  another 
world  came  floating  down  from  heaven  to 
talk  with  their  brother  upon  earth. 

It  is  perhaps  trite  history  that  Columba 
came  from  Ireland  to  lona  in  the  year  563, 
bringing  Christianity  to  the  Picts  of  the 
Western  Islands,  and  that  he  made  lona 
the  fountain-head  of  religion  and  learning 
for  Northern  Europe,  —  dying  there  a.d. 
597,  at  the  age  of  seventy-six.  No  one  can 
speak  of  lona,  though,  without  speaking  of 
her  Saint.  His  spirit  is  indelibly  stamped 
upon  the  place,  and  whosoever  walks  in  his 
footsteps,  must  venerate  his  memory  and 
hallow  his  name.  The  monastic  remains, 
however,  that  the  traveller  finds  in  the 
island  are  the  ruins  of  red  granite  buildings 
of  a  much  later  period  than  that  of  Coliunba 

—  structures  that  his  pious  labour  had 
rendered  possible,  but  which  his  eyes  never 
beheld.  The  nunnery,  St.  Oran's  chapel, 
the  cathedral  and  its  adjacent  fragments  of 
monastery,  all  roofless,  and  all  the  sport 
of  time  and  decay,  are  relics  of  about  the 
twelfth  century.  Parts  of  those  ancient 
fabrics  are,  possibly,  of  a  date  still  earlier 

—  ihe  noble  cathedral  tower  (up  which  you 
may  ascend  by  a  spiral  stone  staircase  of 


126  STOim-BOUND    IN    lONA. 

forty-two  stops),  the  arches  ot  its  north 
transept,  and  the  simple  form  and  massive 
and  beautiful  arched  doorway  of  St.  Gran's 
chapel  bearing  architectural  traces  of  essen- 
tially remote  antiquity.  The  church  that 
Columba  erected  did  not  stand  upon  the 
site  of  the  present  cathedral  ruin,  but  was 
situated  further  to  the  north  and  nearer  to 
the  sea ;  while  the  place  of  his  cell  —  wherein 
his  pillow  was  the  sacred  heart-shaped  stone 
now  j^reserved  in  the  ruined  chancel  —  is 
believed  to  have  been  the  site  of  a  cottage 
under  the  friendly  shelter  of  ])un-i,  a  little 
northward  from  the  Argyll  cross.  (That 
monument,  picturesque  in  itself  and  melan- 
choly in  its  loneliness,  at  the  bleak  roadside, 
commemorates,  "in  the  island  that  she 
loved,"  that  beautiful  and  lamented  lady, 
the  first  contemporary  Duchess  of  Argyll.) 
But  whatever  may  be  the  measure  of  their 
anticpiity,  those  gaunt  ecclesiastical  relics 
are  more  holy  and  beautiful  than  words 
can  tell,  in  their  lone  magnificence  and  deso- 
late grandeur  of  ruin  and  decay.  Accurate 
detail  of  what  they  are  and  of  what  they 
contain  is  well-nigh  impossible,  even  to  an- 
tiquarian research.  The  ravages  equally 
of  barbarian  hordes  and  of  relentless  time 
have  left  scarcely   anything  in    its  place, 


STORM-BOrXD    IX    lOXA.  12/ 

whether  of  statue,  or  carving,  or  inscription, 
or  symbol,  or  brass,  or  picture,  or  memorial 
stone.  But  of  their  general  character,  — 
their  rugged  strength,  their  romantic  as- 
pect, their  awful  solemnity  of  isolation  amid 
a  wilderness  of  brown  crag  and  tempestuous 
sea,  —  and  of  the  sublimity  which  they 
must  have  derived  as  well  from  their  sacred 
purpose  as  from  their  marvellous  natural 
investiture,  it  is  not  difficult  to  judge.  Im- 
agination supplies  every  defect  of  knowl- 
edge, and  the  spirit  that  gazes  upon  those 
remnants  of  vanished  greatness  is  lifted  far 
above  this  world.  The  natural  scene  is  the 
same  to-day  that  it  was  of  old.  A  thousand 
years  make  no  change  in  those  pitiless 
rocks  and  that  stormy  and  savage  clime. 
But  man  and  all  his  works,  —  all  his  hopes 
and  fears,  his  loves  and  hatreds,  his  ambi- 
tions and  passions,  his  famous  deeds,  his 
labours  and  his  sufferings, — have  been 
swept  away,  and  are  become  even  as  an 
echo,  a  shadow,  a  hollow,  dying  word,  a 
pinch  of  dust  borne  seaward  on  the  gale. 
In  the  precincts  of  the  cathedral,  there,  at 
the  foot  of  Oran's  chapel,  was  the  burial- 
ground  of  the  kings  of  Scotland  —  Releig 
Oran.  The  grass  grows  thick  upon  it.  No 
stone  remains  in   its   original  place.     The 


128  STOKM-IJOr-NI)    IN    ION  A. 

rude  letters  and  symbolic  carvings  have 
been  blasted  by  time  and  storm.  The  dust 
of  the  humbler  dead  has  mingled  with  the 
dust  of  warriors  and  of  princes  in  its  royal 
soil.  The  rooks  that  haunt  the  ruined 
cathedral  tower  caw  over  it  as  they  pass, 
and  over  it  sounds  forever  the  melancholy 
booming  of  the  surges  of  the  restless  sea. 
It  is  a  place  of  utter  desolation,  where  noth- 
ing reigns  save  nature's  stony  mockery  of 
all  the  achievements  of  man.  What  colos- 
sal forces  of  human  strength  and  feeling 
lie  hushed  and  cold  beneath  that  humble 
sod  ;  what  heroes  of  forgotten  battles  ;  what 
heroines  of  old  romance  ;  what  black,  self- 
tortured  hearts  of  specious,  ruthless  mur- 
derers ;  what  busy  brains  of  crafty,  scheming 
statesmen,  toiling  ever  through  tortuous 
courses  for  the  power  that  they  never  could 
long  maintain !  Monarchs  and  warriors 
that  fought  against  Rome,  in  the  great  days 
of  Belisarius  and  Constantine  ;  kings  that 
fell  in  battle  and  kings  that  died  by  the 
base  hand  of  midnight  nuirder  ;  kings  that 
perislied  by  the  wrath  of  their  jealous  wives, 
and  kings  who  died  jx'acefully  in  the  arms 
of  mother  cliurch  ;  princes  of  Ireland  and 
of  Norway,  and  Lords  of  the  Isles  —  there 
they  all  sleep,  in  unknown  graves  and  in- 


STORM-BOUND    IX    lONA.  1 29 

accessible  solitude,  beneath  the  brooding 
wings  of  oblivion.  Hard  must  be  the  heart, 
insensible  the  mind,  that  could  dwell  upon 
that  stupendous  scene  of  mortality  without 
awe  and  reverence,  or  could  turn  away  from 
it  without  having  learned,  once  and  forever, 
the  great  lesson  of  humility  and  submission. 

Note  on  ISLicbeth  and  Duncan,  —  It  is  a 

part  of  the  tradition  that  Macbeth,  after  his 
defeat  on  "high  Dunsinane  hill."  which  is 
about  eight  miles  northeast  of  Perth,  was  over- 
taken in  flight,  and  was  slain,  at  Lumphanan, 
a  little  north  of  the  Dee,  about  midway  be- 
tween Ballater  and  Aberdeen.  A  cairn  that 
bears  his  name,  and  is  dubiously  said  to  mark 
his  grave,  may  be  seen  in  a  meadow  of  Lum- 
phanan. Authentic  historians,  however,  de- 
clare that  his  remains  were  conveyed  to  lona, 
which  had  been  the  imperial  sepulchre  from, 
at  latest,  the  time  of  Kenneth  III,  974.  The 
custom  was  to  embark  the  royal  corse  at  Cor- 
pach,  on  Loch  Eil.  The  funeral  barges  would 
thence  make  their  way  tbrough  lonely  seas  to 
the  holy  isle.  The  burial  of  Duncan  at  St. 
Cohimba's  Cell  is  mentioned  by  Shakespeare  : 

"  Rosse.    Where  is  Duncan's  body? 
Macduff.     Carried  to  Colraes-kill, 
The  sacred  store-house  of  his  predeceseore 
And  guardian  of  their  bones." 


II 

SHRINES   OF   LITERATURE 


XL 

THE    rOREST    OF    ARDEX  :     AS    YOU     LIKE     IT. 

IX  Shakespeare's  youthful  days  the  Forest 
of  Arden  was  close  at  his  hand  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  often  wandered  in 
it  and  that  he  knew  it  well.  It  covered  a 
large  tract  of  country  in  Warwickshire,  ex- 
tending from  the  west  bank  of  the  Avon 
six  or  eight  miles  northwest  of  Stratford, 
and  while  that  region  is  cleared  now,  and 
beautifully  cultivated,  and  sprinkled  with 
trim  villages  and  lovely  manors,  and  diver- 
sified with  many  appellations,  the  general 
name  of  Arden  cleaves  to  it  still.  Many  of 
its  great  trees,  indeed,  sturdy  and  splendid 
at  a  vast  age,  remain  in  flourishing  luxuri- 
ance, to  indicate  what  it  was  ;  and  if  you 
stand  upon  the  hill  near  Beaudesert  church 
— where  once  the  banners  of  Peter  de  Mont- 
fort  floated  from  his  battlements  —  and 
gaze  over  the  adjacent  plains,  your  eyes 
will  rest  upon  one  of  the  sweetest  landscapes 
in  all  the  delicious  realm  that  environs  the 

^33 


134  'HK    FORKST    OF    AKDKN: 

heart  of  England.  It  is  idle  to  suppose  that 
Shakespeare  was  unacquainted  with  that 
oUl  woodland  and  the  storied  places  round 
about  it  —  with  Wroxall  Abbey,  and  the 
moated  gi-ange  of  Baddesley  Clinton,  and 
all  the  historic  spots  associated  with  the 
wars  of  Henry  III.,  the  dark  fate  of  Sir 
Piers  Gaveston  the  handsome  Earl  of  Corn- 
wall, and  the  romantic  traditions  of  the 
gi-eat  house  of  AYarwick.  Erom  his  earliest 
boyhood  this  region  nuist  have  been  his  pre- 
empted field  of  exploration  and  adventure 
and  must  have  been  haunted  for  him  with 
stately  shapes  and  glorious  visions.  His 
mother's  name  w^as  Mary  Arden ;  and  we 
may  be  sure  that  with  her  name,  to  him  so 
beautiful  and  so  sacred,  he  always  asso- 
ciated the  freedom  and  the  splendour  of 
that  romantic  forest.  When  therefore  we 
read  his  exquisite  comedy  of  As  You  Like 
It,  and  observe,  as  we  cannot  help  observ- 
ing, that  every  flower  that  blooms,  every 
leaf  that  trembles,  and  every  breeze  that 
murmurs  in  it  is  redolent  of  his  native 
Warwickshire,  we  are  naturally  disinclined 
to  surround  a  purely  ideal  and  fanciful 
conception  with  the  accessories  of  literal 
France,  or  to  endure  an  iron-bound  conven- 
tionality of  treatment  in  the  illustration  of  it. 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 35 

There  are,  to  be  sure,  a  few  French  names 
in  the  piece,  and  in  its  first  scene  Oliver 
designates  Orlando  as  "the  stubbornest 
young  fellow  of  France  "  ;  but  later  we  meet 
with  the  serpent  and  the  lioness,  indigenous 
to  the  jungles  of  Asia.  The  story  upon 
which,  to  a  considerable  extent,  it  was 
founded  —  Thomas  Lodge's  novel  of  Rosa- 
lynd  —  is  French  in  its  location  and  its  per- 
sons ;  but  Shakespeare,  in  his  use  of  that 
novel,  has  played  havoc  equally  with  the 
geography  and  the  nomenclature.  His  scene 
is  anywhere  and  nowhere  ;  but  if  in  this 
piece  the  wings  of  his  imagination  do  brush 
against  the  solid  ground  at  all  it  is  against 
that  haunted  woodland  of  Arden  which 
waved  its  sweet  green  boughs  around  his 
English  home.  As  Yon  Like  It  is  an  Eng- 
lish pastoral  comedy,  through  and  through, 
and  therefore  it  ought  to  be  dressed  in  Eng- 
lish pastoral  robes  —  with  such  genial  though 
discreet  license  as  poetic  fancy  might  prompt 
and  approve  —  and  it  ought  to  be  acted 
under  such  greenwood  trees  as  bloom  in 
the  vale  of  the  Red  Horse,  where  Shake- 
speare lived  and  loved.  Planch e  will  have 
it — since  Shakespeare  has  introduced  pos- 
sibly French  dukes  into  the  story,  whereas 
in  the  original  those   potentates   are   cer- 


136  Till-:    FOREST    OF    AKDKX  : 

tainly  French  kings  —  that  the  action  must 
be  supposed  to  occur  in  France,  and  to  oc- 
cur at  a  time  when  yet  independent  duchies 
existed  in  that  country  ;  and  that  time  he 
declares  nuist  not  he  later  than  the  reign  of 
Louis  XII.  (1408-1515),  who  married  Anne 
of  Brittany  and  so  incorporated  into  the 
royal  dominions  the  last  existing  fief  to  the 
crown.  It  must  be  a  French  garb  of  the  pre- 
ceding reign,  says  that  learned  antiquarian 
and  rose  of  heraldry  — the  reign  of  Charles 
VIII.  (1470-1498)  ;  and  that  will  be  pictur- 
esque and  appropriate.  In  that  way  at  once 
this  lawless,  lilting,  drifting  fiction  is 
brought  within  the  precise  lines  of  fact  and 
duly  provided  with  a  local  habitation.  A 
distinct  purpose  and  a  definite  plan,  of 
course,  there  must  be,  w^hen  a  piece  is  to  be 
acted :  only  it  should  be  urged  and  allowed 
that  in  dealing  with  this  exceptionally  va- 
grant play  the  imagination  ought  to  be  per- 
mitted to  have  a  free  rein.  As  You  Like  It 
is  a  comedy  which  in  a  peculiar  and  un- 
usual degree  requires  imagination  ;  and  not 
with  those  only  who  present  it  but  with 
those  wiio  see  it  performed. 

The  composition  of  this  piece  occurred  at 
a  specially  interesting  period  of  Shake- 
speare's  life.     lie   was  in   his   thirty-fifth 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  I37 

year,  and  he  had,  as  it  proved,  lived  two- 
thirds  of  his  allotted  time.  He  had  written 
all  but  one  {Henry  VIIT.)  of  his  English  his- 
torical plays  ;  he  had  written  eight  out  of 
his  fourteen  comedies ;  he  had  written 
Romeo  and  Juliet ;  while  his  great  tragedies 
of  Hamlet  and  Julius  Coisar  were  close  at 
hand  and  must  have  been  much  in  his 
thoughts.  [The  first  draft  of  Hamlet^  in- 
deed, may  have  been  written  long  before 
his  thirty-fifth  year.]  Imagination  had  ob- 
tained full  possession  of  him  by  this  time, 
and  he  was  looking  at  life  with  a  compre- 
hensive vision  and  writing  about  it  with  an 
imperial  aflQuence  of  freedom,  feeling,  and 
power.  No  work  of  art  was  ever  yet  created 
by  anybody  without  labour,  but  the  propor- 
tion of  effort  differs  in  different  cases,  and 
surely  no  quality  is  more  conspicuous  in 
As  You  Like  It  than  that  of  spontaneity. 
The  piece  is  exceptional  for  its  fluent  grace. 
It  must  have  been  written  easily  and  in  a 
happy,  dream-like,  careless  mood,  half  rev- 
erie and  half  frolic.  There  is  much  wise 
philosophy  in  it,  veiled  with  playfulness  ; 
there  is  much  in  it  of  the  poetrj^  which  with 
Shakespeare  was  incidental  and  natural ; 
and  here  and  there  it  is  lightly  touched  vdi\\ 
the  pensive  melancholy  of  a  mind  that  is 


138  THK    FORKST    OF    AKDK.X  : 

lUsenchanted  with  the  world :  but  its  pre- 
dominant tone  is  sprightly  ;  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  Shakespeare  was  at  ease  in 
its  creation,  and  perhaps  we  may  dis- 
cern in  it  much  of  his  temperament  and 
of  his  habitual  mental  attitude  —  which 
apparently  was  that  of  calm,  benign,  hu- 
morous, half-pitying,  half-playful  tolerance 

—  toward  human  nature  and  human  life, 
lie  threw  aside  all  restraint  when  writ- 
ing this  play,  and  allowed  his  fancies  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  The  persons 
who  figure  in  As  You  Like  It  are  all, 
in  some  measure,  shadowy.  They  are  at 
once  real  and  unreal.  They  lay  hold  of 
experience  but  their  grasp  is  frail.  The 
loves  of  Orlando  and  Rosalind  are  not  the 
loves  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  The  cynical 
musings  of  Jaques  are  not  the  corrosive 
reflections  of  Hamlet.  The  waggish  droll- 
ery of  Touchstone  is  not  the  pathetic  levity 
of  the  Fool  in  Lear.  The  drift,  the  sub- 
stance, the  significance  is  "as  you  like  it  " 

—  as  you  may  please  to  find  it ;  grave  or 
gay,  according  to  the  eyes  with  which  you 
look  and  the  heart  with  which  you  feel. 
Those  persons,  entangled  with  incidents 
that  are  mostly  impossible,  flit  about  under 
green  leaves,    amid   the   mossy   trunks   of 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 39 

slumberous  trees,  in  dells  that  are  musical 
with  bird-songs  and  running  water  and  res- 
onant with  the  echoes  of  the  huntsman's 
horn ;  and  while  the  fragrant  wind  blows 
on  their  faces  and  the  wild  deer  dash  away 
at  their  approach  they  play  their  parts  in  a 
sweetly  fantastic  story  of  fortune's  vicissi- 
tudes and  love's  delays,  such  as  never  could 
literally  have  happened  in  the  world,  but 
which  the  great  poet,  in  his  own  wonderful 
way,  has  made  tributary  to  an  exposition 
of  the  strongest  contrasts  that  human  ex- 
perience can  afford.  There  is  one  obvious 
lesson  to  be  deduced  from  this  understand- 
ing of  the  subject.  The  reader  or  the  spec- 
tator who  w^ould  fully  enjoy  As  You  Like  It 
must  accept  it  in  the  mood  in  wdiich  it  was 
conceived.  He  knows  that  lions  do  not 
range  French  or  English  forests,  and  that 
Rosalmd,  though  in  man's  apparel,  would 
at  once  be  recognised  by  the  eyes  of  love. 
Yet  to  those  and  to  all  discrepancies  he  is 
blind.  He  even  can  assent  to  the  spectacle 
of  Jaques  stretched  beside  the  brawling 
stream  at  the  foot  of  the  antique  oak,  speak- 
ing his  sermons  upon  human  weakness, 
folly,  and  injustice,  with  nobody  for  an 
audience.  He  feels  himself  set  free  from 
the  world  of  hard  facts.     He  is  in  Arden. 


140  THE    FOREST    OF    ARDEN  : 

The  antiquated  metrical  story,  Coke's 
Tale  of  Gamelyn,  which  is  older  than  Chau- 
cer, was  the  precursor  of  Lodge's  novel  of 
Jiosalynd,  or  Enplmes'  Golden  Legacye, 
published  in  1590,  and  this  novel  of  Bosa- 
lynd,  by  one  of  Shakespeare's  contempora- 
ries, was  in  turn  the  precursor  of  As  You 
Like  It.  Shakespeare  followed  the  novel  in 
his  use  of  incidents  and  conduct  of  plot, 
but  he  has  transfigured  it  by  his  investiture 
of  the  characters  with  new  and  often  ex- 
alted personality,  and  by  his  poetical  ex- 
pression and  embellishment  of  them.  He  fur- 
thermore invented  and  introduced  Jaques, 
Touchstone,  and  Audrey.  The  comedy 
was  not  printed  during  his  lifetime  and  it 
did  not  make  its  appearance  till  Heminge 
and  Condell  published  the  first  folio,  in 
1G23.  The  piece  as  there  given  is  divided 
into  acts  and  scenes.  The  text  was  sub- 
sequently altered  for  the  second  folio  (1632), 
and  substantially  according  to  the  form  then 
adopted  the  comedy  has  survived.  The  first 
text,  however,  is  a  good  one.  Those  dis- 
crepancies, by  the  way,  between  the  texts 
of  the  four  Shakespeare  folios,  interfere 
sadly  with  the  addle-headed  and  superflu- 
ous industry  of  Mr.  Donnelly  and  his  disci- 
ples in  their  manufacture  of  Bacon  crypto- 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  I4I 

grams.  The  first  performance  of  As  You 
Like  It  appears  to  have  occurred  at  the 
Globe  theatre  in  the  first  year  of  its  exist- 
ence (that  house  was  opened  early  in  1599 
and  was  burnt  down  on  June  29,  1613),  and 
an  ancient  and  apparently  authentic  tra- 
dition (it  was  first  recorded  by  William 
Oldys,  1687-1761)  declares  that  Shake- 
speare himself  acted  in  it  as  Adam.  The 
epilogue  is  thought  to  be,  at  least  in  part, 
spurious.  It  obviously  was  written  with  a 
view  to  its  being  spoken  by  the  boy  who 
played  the  woman  part  of  Kosalind  in 
Shakespeare's  time  and  later.  It  is  a  feeble 
composition,  whoever  ^^Tote  it.  It  is  slightly 
altered  for  stage  use. 

It  has  often  been  urged  that  the  necessity 
of  providing  occupation  for  a  dramatic  com- 
pany and  of  furnishing  a  novelty  to  win  the 
public  attention  and  support  is  a  sufficient 
motive,  or  impulse,  or  inspiration  for  the 
making  of  a  good  play  ;  and  the  believers 
in  that  doctrine  — that  eminent  Shakespeare 
scholar  Richard  Grant  White  being  conspic- 
uously one  of  them  —  usually  point  to 
Shakespeare  as  an  example  in  proof  of  this 
practical  and  sordid  theory.  But  Shake- 
speare's plays  it  is  found,  tax  to  the  utmost 
limit  the  best  powers  of  the  best  actors ; 


!42  THE    FOREST    OF    ARDEN  : 

and  furthermore  those  plays  contain,  as  a 
rule,  more  material,  and  that  of  a  liigher 
order,  than  the  average  public  has  ever 
comprehended  or  ever  vs^ill  comprehend.  If 
indeed  vShakespeare  wrote  his  plays  simply 
to  fit  the  company  engaged  at  the  Globe 
theatre  and  the  Blackfriars  —  in  both  of 
which  he  appears  to  have  owned  an  interest 
and  at  both  of  which  the  same  company 
performed  —  or  if  he  wrote  them  simply  to 
please  the  passing  caprice  of  the  time,  he 
must  have  had  a  marvellous  dramatic  com- 
pany in  his  view,  and  he  must  have  been 
aware  of  a  still  more  marvellous  community 
to  be  addressed.  Either  this  or  assuredly 
he  made  needless  exertions,  since  he  has 
over-freighted  his  plays  with  every  sort  of 
mental  and  spiritual  wealth  and  beauty. 
The  affluence  of  mentality  in  the  comedy  of 
As  You  Like  It  —  consisting  in  the  quaint 
whimsicality  of  its  humour,  the  complex 
quality  of  its  chief  characters,  the  airy,  del- 
icate, evanescent  poetry  of  its  atmosphere, 
the  sequestration  of  its  scene,  and  the  fan- 
tastic caprice  and  indolent  drift  of  its  inci- 
dents —  has  always  rendered  it  a  difficult 
play  for  actors  to  treat  in  a  perfectly  ade- 
quate and  successful  manner,  has  always 
kept  it  rather  remote  from  general  appreci- 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 43 

ation,  and  has  made  it  a  cause  of  some  per- 
plexity to  the  critical  mind.  The  truth 
doubtless  is  that  Shakespeare,  out  of  the 
necessities  of  his  nature  and  not  merely  out 
of  those  of  worldly  circumstance,  while  la- 
bouring for  the  stage,  wrote  for  a  larger 
theatre  than  ever  was  comprised  within 
four  walls  and  in  accordance  —  whether 
consciously  or  not  —  with  higher  laws  of 
expression  than  those  that  govern  a  theat- 
rical manager  in  the  matter  of  demand  and 
supply  in  dealing  with  the  public.  He  was 
not  a  photographer  ;  he  was  an  artist.  He 
did  not  copy  life  ;  he  transfigured  it  and 
idealised  it.  The  great  creations  of  his 
dramatic  genius  are  not  actual  men  and 
women  of  the  everyday  world  ;  they  are 
representative  types  of  human  nature,  and 
there  is  always  a  deeper  meaning  in  them 
than  the  obvious  one  that  appears  upon  the 
surface.  The  same  mystery  invests  them 
that  nature  has  diffused  around  the  origin 
and  destiny  of  the  human  soul.  For  this 
reason  they  inspire  incessant  interest,  and 
hence  it  is  that  the  field  of  Shakespearean 
study  can  never  be  exhausted. 

In  As  Tou  Like  It  Shakespeare's  mood, 
while  happy  and  frolicsome,  is  also  whim- 
sical, satirical,  full  of  banter,  covertly  wise 


144  'J""K    FOREST    OF    ARDEN  : 

but  outwardly  fantastic.  He  fools  you  to 
the  top  of  your  bent.  He  is  willing  that 
you  should  take  the  play  in  earnest  if  you 
like  to  do  so,  but  he  smiles  all  the  while  at 
your  credulity.  He  will  end  it  rationally 
enough,  in  the  matter  of  doing  poetic  justice  ; 
but  in  the  meanwhile  he  has  turned  every- 
thing upside  down  and  he  is  making  merry 
over  the  spectacle.  Such  incidents  as  the 
radical  conversion  of  the  wicked  duke  by 
the  good  hermit  and  the  instantaneous  re- 
generation of  the  malignant  Oliver  by  his 
brother's  single  act  of  generosity  are  suffi- 
ciently typical  of  this  poetic  pleasantry. 
The  most  sonorous  and  apparently  the  most 
searching  observations  upon  human  experi- 
ence are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jaques  ;  but 
Jaques  is  perhaps  the  least  sane  and  sub- 
stantial of  the  representative  persons  in  the 
comedy  —  being  an  epicurean  in  sentiment 
and  a  wayward  cynic,  w^hose  remarks,  al- 
though quite  true  as  far  as  they  go  and  won- 
derfully felicitous  in  manner,  really  contain 
no  deep  truth  and  no  final  wisdom,  but  are 
alike  fragile  and  fantastic  ;  as  any  one  can 
see  who  will,  for  a  test,  set  them  beside 
either  of  the  four  great  soliloquies  in  Ham- 
let, or  beside  the  principal  speeches  of 
Ulysses,  in  Troilus  and  Cressida.  The  wisest 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 45 

man  in  the  play  is  the  professed  Fool,  —  by 
whom  and  by  the  old  servant  Adam  the 
only  manifestations  are  made  that  the  piece 
contains  of  the  highest  of  human  virtues, 
self-sacrifice  :  for  even  as  Adam  devotes  all 
to  Orlando  so  does  Touchstone  devote  all 
to  Celia.  Xo  especial  stress  was  laid  on 
the  lover.  He  is  handsome,  pure,  ingenu- 
ous, and  brave,  and  he  serves  his  purpose  ; 
but  it  is  evident  that  Shakespeare  loved 
Rosalind,  since  in  drawing  her  he  ceases  to 
jest.  Rosalind  is  not  merely  the  heroine  of 
an  impossible  courtship  in  a  visionary  for- 
est ;  she  is  the  typical  perfection  of  enchant- 
ing womanhood.  She  is  everj'thmg  that 
man  loves  in  woman.  She  is  neither  an 
angel  nor  a  fairy.  She  is  flesh  and  blood  ; 
and  while  her  mind  and  accomplishments 
are  noble  and  her  attributes  of  character 
poetical,  she  is  depicted  in  absolute  har- 
mony with  that  significant  line,  wrapping 
truth  with  a  jest,  in  Shakespeare's  one  hun- 
dred and  thirtieth  sonnet, 

"  My  mistress,  when  she  walks,  treads  on  the 
ground." 

Ainid  the  sprightly  caprice,  the  tantalising 
banter,  the  drift  and  whirl  of  fantastic  inci- 
dents, and  the  glancing  lights  of  folly  and 

K 


146  THE    FOREST    OF    ARDEX  : 

wisdom  that  constitute  this  comedy  the 
luxuriant,  sumptuous,  dazzling,  entrancing 
figure  of  Kosalind  stands  out  clear  and  firm 
in  the  warm  light  of  its  own  surpassing 
loveliness.  And  this  is  the  personalit}'  that 
has  from  time  to  time  brought  As  Yon  Like 
It  upon  the  stage,  and  temporarily  at  least 
has  kept  it  there. 

At  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death  (161(3) 
two  movements  had  already  begun  which, 
gathering  power  and  momentum  as  the 
years  rolled  on,  have  done  much  to  shape 
the  dubious,  shifting,  political  condition  of 
the  world  of  to-day.  One  of  these  was  a 
movement  in  favour  of  government  by  the 
many  ;  the  other  was  a  movement  against 
the  Roman  Catholic  church.  Both  pre- 
vailed in  the  establishment  of  the  Common- 
wealth, and  one  of  the  first  institutions  that 
went  down  under  them  was  the  British 
I^rama.  Shakespeare  was  an  exceedingly 
popular  author  during  his  lifetime,  and  his 
works  must  have  been  in  request  for  a  con- 
siderable time  after  his  death,  because  the 
first  folio,  lG2o,  was  succeeded  by  another 
in  1632 ;  but  soon  after  that  date  theatres 
and  plays  began  to  drop  out  of  the  pub- 
lic view.  The  fecundity  of  play-writers 
between    Shakespeare's    theatrical    advent 


AS   YOU    LIKE    IT,  1 47 

(1588)  and  the  year  1640  must  indeed  have 
been  abundant,  since  out  of  nearly  or  quite 
six  hundred  plays  that  got  into  print  in 
England  before  the  Restoration  (1660)  only 
fifty-eight  are  thought  to  have  existed  before 
Shakespeare  began  to  write.  The  others, 
therefore,  must  have  been  made  during  and 
after  his  immediate  time.  But  the  -  war 
between  Charles  I.  and  his  Parliament  put 
an  end  to  that  dramatic  episode  ;  and  pres- 
ently, when  the  Puritans  prevailed,  they 
authorised  by  law  (1047)  the  destruction  of 
theatres  and  the  public  flagellation  of  actors. 
There  is  a  great  darkness,  of  course,  over 
that  period  of  theatrical  history.  Soon 
after  the  Restoration,  indeed,  the  third  folio 
of  Shakespeare's  works  made  its  appear- 
ance (1663-64),  containing  six  if  not  seven 
plays  that  were  spurious  ;  and  in  1685  came 
the  fourth  folio  ;  yet  all  the  while  Shake- 
speare seems  to  have  been  banished  from 
the  stage,  and  in  general  from  contempo- 
rary knowledge.  Dry  den  mangled  his  lovely 
comedy  of  The  Tempest  (1670),  and  his 
noble  tragedy  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra 
(1678),  and  sapiently  referred  to  his  man- 
ner as  "out  of  date."  Xot  till  the  period 
of  Queen  Anne  did  the  Shakespeare  revival 
begm,  and  even  then  it  was  a  languid  force= 


148  THE    FOREST    OF    ARDEN  : 

Hut  it  began  —  and  little  by  little  the  plays 
of  the  great  master  made  their  way  back  to 
their  rightful  pre-eminence. 

As  You  Like  It,  after  its  first  career  at 
the  Globe  theatre  —  and  whether  this  was 
long  or  short  nobody  knows  —  seems  to 
have  sunk  into  abeyance  and  to  have  re- 
mained unused  for  a  long  time.  It  may 
have  been  revived  at  the  period  of  the  Res- 
toration, but  I  have  found  no  record  of  its 
presentation  in  that  epoch.  An  injurious 
alteration  of  it,  called  Love  In  a  Forest,  by 
Charles  Johnson,  was  acted  at  Drury  Lane, 
for  six  nights,  in  1723,  and  was  published 
in  that  year  ;  but  it  is  the  opinion  of  Genest 
that  the  original  piece  was  not  acted  in 
England  at  any  time  after  the  Restoration 
until  1740.  On  December  20  in  that  year 
it  was  brought  forward  at  Drury  Lane  with 
a  brilliant  cast.  Mrs.  Pritchard  was  the 
Rosalind.  This  was  repeated  on  January 
16,  1741,  and  twenty-five  times  during  tliat 
season.  Within  the  next  sixty  years  As 
You  Like  It  was  reproduced  upon  the  Lon- 
don stage  thirteen  times. 

The  immediate  competitors  and  the  suc- 
cessors of  Mrs.  Pritchard  as  Rosalind, 
counting  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tuiy,  were  Peg  Woffington  ;   Mrs.  Dancer 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  I49 

(who  subsequently  became  Mrs.  Barry, 
wife  of  Spranger  Barry,  and  finally  Mrs. 
Crawford)  ;  Mrs.  Bulkeley  ;  Miss  Younge  ; 
Miss  Frodsham  ;  Mrs.  Siddons  ;  and  Mrs. 
Jordan.  Peg  Woffington  as  Rosalind  de- 
lighted everybody.  Her  first  performance 
of  the  part  was  given  during  her  first  season 
on  the  London  stage,  after  she  had  left 
Covent  Garden  and  gone  to  Drury  Lane, 
where  she  fii'st  appeared  on  September  8, 
1741,  as  Sylvia  m  The  Recruiting  Officer, 
imder  the  management  of  Fleetwood.  Kitty 
Clive  played  Celia  when  \Yoffington  first 
embodied  Rosalind,  and  Theophilus  Gibber 
played  Jaques.  It  was  in  Rosalind  that 
this  great  actress  was  last  seen  upon  the 
stage.  May  3,  1757,  in  Govent  Garden  —  the 
tragic  fact  of  her  collapse  while  speaking 
the  epilogue  being  one  of  the  best  known 
incidents  in  dramatic  historj".  Without 
doubt  she  was  the  best  Rosalind  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Mrs.  Dancer  came 
next  and  was  deemed  superb.  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons first  acted  the  part  on  April  30,  1785  ; 
but  as  might  have  been  foreseen  she  did  not 
succeed  in  it.  The  record  made  by  Genest 
is  explanatory  and  explicit :  "  Mrs.  Siddons 
contrived  a  dress  for  Rosalind  which  was 
neither  male  nor  female.     For  this  she  was 


150         THE  k()rp:st  of  arden: 

ridiculed  in  the  papers,  and  very  deservedly. 
She  had  it  entirely  at  her  option  to  act 
Rosalind  or  not  to  act  Rosalind  ;  but  w^hen 
she  determined  to  act  the  part  it  v^^as  her 
duty  to  dress  it  properly.  Mrs.  Siddons 
did  not  add  to  her  reputation  by  her  per- 
formance of  Rosalind,  and  when  Mrs.  Jor- 
dan had  played  the  character  few  persons 
wished  to  see  Mrs.  Siddons  in  it."  Mrs. 
Abington,  in  a  conversation  with  the  vet- 
eran Crabb  Robinson,  mentioned  that  effort 
on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Siddons  long  afterward 
(June  16,  1811).  "Early  in  life,"  she 
remarked,  "Mrs.  Siddons  was  anxious  to 
succeed  in  comedy,  and  played  Rosalind 
before  I  retired."  And  Mr.  Robinson  in- 
genuously adds :  "  Mrs.  Siddons  she  praised, 
though  not  with  the  warmth  of  a  genuine 
admirer."  Mrs.  Jordan  first  acted  Rosa- 
lind on  April  13,  1787.  This  was  also  at 
Drury  Lane.  John  Rliilip  Kemble  played 
Orlando.  The  success  of  the  actress  was 
brilliant.  It  was  felt  that  the  part  had  not 
been  acted  in  such  a  winning  manner  since 
the  days  of  the  incomparable  Woffington. 
"The  elastic  step,  the  artless  action,  the 
sincere  laugh,  and  the  juicy  tones  of  her 
clear  and  melodious  voice"  (John  Gait) 
were  all,  we  may  be  sure,  delightful  embel- 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  I5I 

lislimeuts  of  that  performance.  ' '  Her  Rosa- 
lind, ' '  says  Oxberry , ' '  was  exquisite. ' '  Mrs. 
Jordan  herself,  however,  seems  to  have 
taken  a  different  view  of  the  subject,  since 
long  afterward,  in  the  green-room  at  Covent 
Garden  on  a  night  when  she  was  playing 
Rosalind,  she  said  to  John  Taylor  {Records 
of  My  Life,  p.  122):  "If  the  public  had 
any  taste  how  could  they  bear  me  in  the 
part  which  I  play  to-night,  and  which  is  far 
above  my  habits  and  pretensions!"  Of 
Mrs.  Dancer  as  Rosalind  (1767),  the  same 
memoir  makes  enthusiastic  mention  no  less 
than  three  times  in  different  chapters. 
"  Mrs.  Dancer's  Rosalind,"  says  that  vet- 
eran judge,  '-was  the  most  perfect  repre- 
sentation of  the  character  that  I  ever 
witnessed.  It  was  tender,  animated,  and 
playful  to  the  highest  degree.  She  gave  the 
'  Cuckoo  Song '  with  admirable  humour." 

Since  1800  As  You  Like  It  has  been  often 
in  the  public  view  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  Its  first  revival  at  London  within 
the  present  century  was  made  on  October 
25,  1805,  at  Covent  Garden.  The  cast  then 
included  John  Philip  Kemble  as  Jaques, 
Charles  Kemble  as  Orlando,  Fawcett  as 
Touchstone,  Incledon  as  Amiens,  Murray 
as  Adam,  Brunton  as  Oliver,  Blanchard  as 


152  THK    KOUKST    OF    Al'.DEN  : 

William,  Miss  Smith  as  Rosalind,  Miss 
Briinton  as  Celia,  and  Mrs.  Mattocks  as 
Audrey.  The  book  of  this  play,  as  revised 
and  prepared  for  the  stage  by  J.  P.  Kemble, 
was  published  in  1810.  Macready  on  vari- 
ous occasions  enacted  Jaques,  but  he  has 
left  no  record  of  it  that  is  usefully  signili- 
cant.  His  first  performance  of  it  was  given 
in  1819-20,  at  Covent  Garden.  "Jaques 
was  a  study  for  me,"  he  says,  in  his  Auto- 
hiography^  "one  of  those  real  varieties  of 
mind  with  which  it  is  a  pleasure  in  represen- 
tation to  identify  one's  self."  Sanuiel  Phelps, 
however,  who  particij^ated  in  Macready's  re- 
vival of  the  comedy  at  Drury  Lane  on  Octo- 
ber 1, 1842,  told  his  biographer  John  Coleman 
that  it  was  "the  most  superb  production  of 
As  You  Like  It  the  world  has  ever  seen  or 
ever  will  see."  Rosalind  was  then  taken  by 
Mrs.  Nisbett.  "Not  having  seen  her,"  said 
the  veteran,  "  you  don'tknow  what  beauty  is. 
Her  voice  was  liquid  nmsic.  Her  laugh  — 
there  never  was  such  a  laugh  !  Her  eyes, 
living  crystals,  lamps  lit  with  light  divine  ! 
Her  gorgeous  neck  and  shoulders  —  her 
superbly  symmetrical  limbs,  her  grace,  her 
taste,  her  nameless  but  irresistible  charm. 
.  .  .  You  may  rave  about  Helen  Faucit's 
Rosalind,   but    you    never  saw    Nisbett." 


AS   YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 53 

This  estimate,  so  much  in  the  vein  of  Sir 
Anthony  Absolute's  description  of  Lydia 
Languish,  glances  at  a  woman  whose  por- 
traits show  her  to  have  been  very  beautiful. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  Captain  Mac- 
namara,  who  is  supposed  to  have  suggested 
the  immortal  Costigan,  and  she  is  said  to 
have  been  the  original  of  Miss  Fotheringay, 
in  Pendennis.  Macready's  comment  on 
that  revival  of  As  You  Like  It  is  in  humor- 
ous contrast  with  that  of  Phelps.  "  The 
only  shortcoming  in  the  whole  perform- 
ance," he  said  to  Lady  Pollock,  "  was  the 
Rosalind  of  Mrs.  Xisbett,  a  charming  actress 
in  many  characters,  but  not  equal  to  that. 
She  was  not  disagreeable,  but  she  was 
inadequate."  And  Macready  spoke  of 
having  introduced  into  his  revival,  with 
excellent  effect,  the  delicate  tinkle  of  sheep- 
bells,  as  if  the  flock  were  somewhere  feed- 
ing in  pastures  incident  to  the  Forest  of 
Arden.  The  best  of  the  Rosalinds  in  his 
eyes,  and  indeed  in  the  eyes  of  many  judges 
of  a  pa.st  generation,  was  Helen  Faucit,  now 
Lady  Martin,  who  acted  the  part  for  the 
first  time  on  March  18,  1839,  at  Covent 
Garden,  with  James  Anderson  as  Orlando, 
Macready  as  Jaques,  and  Phelps  as  the 
First    Lord.      Ellen    Tree    (Mrs.    Charles 


154  THE    FOREST    OF    ARDEX  : 

Kean)  came  next,  who  acted  Rosalind  on 
September  13,  1839,  at  the  London  Hay- 
market,  and  the  old  records  abound  with 
praises  of  her  performance.  Buckstone 
appeared  as  Touchstone,  Phelps  as  Jaques, 
and  Priscilla  Tlorton  (Mrs.  German  Keed), 
as  Celia.  Several  English  actresses  have 
assumed  Rosalind  since  the  time  of  Ellen 
Tree  —  but  only  one  has  eclipsed  her,  the 
late  Adelaide  Neilson,  who  was  superbly 
beautiful  in  the  part  and  a  vision  of  dazzling 
glee.  Fanny  Kemble  has  often  given  read- 
ings of  As  You  Like  It,  but  she  has  not  acted 
in  it. 

On  the  British  stage  Rosalind  has  been 
played  also  by  Fanny  Cooper  (Mrs.  T.  H. 
Lacy),  who  had  the  aid  of  G.  V.  Brooke  as 
Orlando  ;  Isabella Glyn  (Mrs.  E.  S.  Dallas); 
Millicent  Palmer ;  Jane  Elizabeth  Vezin 
(Mrs.  Charles  Young)  ;  Carlotta  Leclercq 
(Mrs.  John  Nelson)  ;  Mrs.  Rousby  ;  Mrs. 
Scott-Siddons  ;  Mary  Provost  (Mrs.  Sanuiel 
Colville),  at  the  Princess's,  London,  July 
9,1801 ;  Julia  Bennett  (Mrs.  Barrow) ;  Amy 
Sedgewick  (Mrs.  Goostry)  ;  Madge  Robert- 
son Kendal  (Mrs.  W.  H.  Grimston)  ;  Miss 
Marriott;  Jean  Davenport  (Mrs.  Lander); 
Mrs.  Langtry  ;  Miss  Marie  Litton,  and  Miss 
Calhoun.     At  the   Shakespeare   Memorial 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 55 

theatre,  and  for  the  benefit  of  that  institu- 
tion, at  Stratford-upon-Avon,  Mary  Ander- 
son enacted  Rosalind,  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life,  on  August  29,  1885,  and  afterwards 
she  repeated  the  performance  in  various 
cities  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 
On  the  American  stage  As  You  Like  It 
was  acted  on  July  14,  1786,  at  the  John 
street  theatre,  New  York,  with  Mrs. 
Kenna  as  Rosalind.  Ireland  records  this, 
together  with  other  presentations  of  the 
comedy  in  New  York  prior  to  1860.  On 
June  21,  1796  it  was  performed  at  the 
John  street  theatre,  with  Mrs.  Johnson  as 
Rosalind,  Mr.  Hodgkinson  as  Jaques,  Mr. 
Hallam  as  Touchstone,  Mr.  Cleveland  as 
Orlando,  Mrs.  Cleveland  as  Celia,  and  Mrs, 
Brett  as  Audrey.  Mr.  Jefferson,  grand- 
father of  the  Jefferson  of  to-day,  enacted 
Le  Beau.  The  famous  Park  theatre  was 
opened  with  As  Tou  Like  It,  on  ^Monday, 
January  29,  1798.  The  piece  was  acted 
only  once,  however,  and  the  next  mention 
of  it  that  occurs  in  the  story  of  the  New 
York  stage  records  its  production  on  Janu- 
ary 8,  1850,  at  the  Astor  Place  opera  house, 
where  it  was  acted  for  the  benefit  of  the 
American  Dramatic  Fund  Association,  with 
Charlotte  Cushman  as  Rosalind,  Burton  as 


156  THE    FOREST    OF    AKDEX  : 

Touchstone,  Hainl)liu  as  Jaqucs,  11.  Bland 
as  Orlando,  Chippendale  as  Adam,  Mrs. 
Abbott  as  Celia,  Mrs.  J.  Gilbert  as  Au- 
drey, and  George  Jordan  as  Le  Beau. 
The  elder  "Wallack  closed  his  first  sea- 
son at  the  old  Broadway  and  Broome 
Street  house  with  seven  performances  of 
As  You  Like  It,  ending  June  13,  185:5, 
himself  playing  Jaques,  with  Laura  Keene 
as  Bosalind,  Mrs.  Brougham  as  Audrey, 
Lester  Wallack  as  Orlando,  Charles  Wal- 
cot  as  Touchstone,  and  Blake  as  Adam. 
At  Burton's  theatre,  which  ultimately  be- 
came the  Winter  Garden,  this  comedy  was 
represented  on  January  20,  1857,  for  the 
benefit  of  Julia  Bennett  Barrow%  a  bril- 
liant actress  in  her  time,  who  embodied 
Rosalind  and  who  was  a  ripe  and  dashing 
beauty  in  those  days.  Burton  enacted 
Touchstone  on  that  occasion,  Charles  Fisher 
was  Jaques,  and  Orlando  was  performed  by 
Mr,  Belton  —  an  earnest  and  picturesque 
actor,  now  forgotten.  Laura  Keene  chose 
Rosalind  for  her  first  character,  when  she 
opened  her  theatre  at  622  Broadway,  on 
November  18,  1856,  and  the  cast  then  in- 
cluded George  Jordan  as  Orlando,  Charles 
Wheatleigh  as  Touchstone,  Dickinson  as 
Jaques,  Burnett  as  Adam,  Wemyss  as  the 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  I57 

Duke  in  exile,  J.  H.  Stoddart  as  Corin,  and 
Mrs.  Grattan  as  Audrey. 

On  the  American  stage  As  You  Like  It 
was  acted  more  frequently  within  the  thirty 
years  from  1860  to  1890  than  it  was  on 
either  side  of  the  Atlantic  during  the  preced- 
ing sixty  years  of  this  century.  Several 
fine  casts  of  its  characters  might  be  cited. 
On  November  29, 1870  it  was  acted  at  Xiblo's 
theatre,  Xew  York,  with  the  best  Orlando 
of  the  age,  AValter  Montgomery  ;  and  the 
cast  then  included  E.  L.  Davenport  as 
Jaques,  Mark  Smith  as  Adam,  Mrs.  Scott- 
Siddons  as  Rosalind,  Vining  Bowers  as 
Touchstone,  James  Dunn  as  Amiens,  and 
Milnes  Levick  as  Duke  Frederick.  On  May 
2,  1871  a  performance  of  it  was  given  at 
Xiblo's  with  E.  L.  Davenport  as  Jaques, 
and  C.  R.  Thome,  Jr.,  as  Orlando.  Car- 
lotta  Leclercq  played  Rosalind,  for  the  first 
time  in  New  York,  at  Booth's  theatre,  on 
March  25,  1872.  The  Jaques  was  D.  W. 
Waller ;  the  Touchstone  Robert  Pateman. 
Adelaide  Xeilson  played  Rosalind,  for  the 
first  time  in  America,  on  December  2, 
1872,  at  Booth's  theatre.  J.  W.  Wallack, 
Jr.,  was  Jaques.  Fanny  Davenport  ap- 
peared at  Booth's  theatre  on  December  22, 
1877  as  Rosalind,  with  Charles  Fisher  as 


Jaques.  Ada  Cavendish,  who  came  to 
America  in  1878,  had  not  acted  Rosalind  on 
the  EngUsh  stage,  but  she  assumed  the  part 
here  and  was  admired  in  it.  Rose  Coghlan 
appeared  for  the  first  time  as  Rosalind  on 
September  30,  1880,  at  Wallack's  theatre. 
Mrs.  Langtry's  advent  in  this  part  was 
seen  at  the  same  theatre  on  November  lo, 
1882.  Helena  Modjeska  assumed  it  on 
December  11,  1882,  at  Booth's  theatre. 
A  performance  of  As  You  Like  It  was 
given  in  the  open  air  in  the  grounds 
of  the  Masconomo  House,  at  Manchester, 
Massachusetts,  on  August  8,  1887,  with 
Rose  Coghlan  as  Rosalind,  Osmond  Tearle 
as  Orlando,  Frank  Mayo  as  Jaques,  Agnes 
Booth  as  Audrey,  and  Stuart  Robson  as 
Touchstone.  This  experiment  had  previ- 
ously been  made  in  England  and  had  met 
with  social  favour. 

Under  the  management  of  Augustin  Daly 
by  wiiom  it  was  revived  with  scrupulous 
care  and  profuse  liberality,  to  signalise 
the  assumption  of  Rosalind  by  Ada  Re- 
han,  December,  17,  1889,  As  You  Like  It 
has  been  presented  at  various  times  and 
places.  Mr.  Daly's  first  season  as  a  the- 
atrical manager  began  on  August  16,  1869, 
when  he  opened  the  Fifth  avenue  theatre 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT.  1 59 

in  Twenty-fourth  street.  That  season  con- 
tinued until  July  9,  1870,  and  in  the  course 
of  it  he  presented  twenty-five  plays,  three 
of  which  were  comedies  by  Shakespeare  — 
Twelfth  Night,  As  You  Like  'It,  and  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing.  Mr.  Daly's  dramatic 
company  at  that  time  consisted  of  thirty- 
three  members,  including  E.  L.  Davenport, 
George  Holland,  William  Davidge,  James 
Lewis,  George  Clarke,  D.  H.  Harkins,  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  Fanny  Davenport,  Agnes  Ethel, 
Clara  Jennings,  Lina  Edwin,  Mrs.  Chan- 
frau,  and  Mrs.  Marie  Wilkins.  For  the 
Shakespeare  revival  Mrs.  Scott-Siddons,  an 
actress  then  in  the  fresh  enjoyment  of  pub- 
lic attention,  was  engaged  as  a  star.  Mrs. 
Scott-Siddons  played  Rosalind,  and  so  did 
Mrs.  Clara  Jennings.  The  name  of  the  former 
had  for  two  years  been  prominently  asso- 
ciated with  the  part.  Mrs.  Scott-Siddons 
made  her  first  appearance  on  the  London 
stage  on  April  8,  18(37,  at  the  Haymarket 
theatre,  as  Rosalind.  Her  first  display  of 
the  character  in  America  was  made  in  a 
reading  that  she  gave  in  New  York,  on  Oc- 
tober 26,  1868,  in  Steinway  hall.  She  first 
acted  the  part  in  this  country  on  November 
14,  at  the  Boston  JNIuseum,  and  her  first 
representation  of  it  in  New  York  was  given 


l6o  THE    FOREST    OF    AKDEN  : 

on  November  30,  1868,  at  the  New  York 
theatre,  under  the  management  of  Augustin 
Daly.  Her  star  was  eclipsed  by  that  of 
Adelaide  Neilson,  who  in  her  day  held 
Kosalind  against  all  competitors.  Ellen 
Terry  has  often  been  urged  to  impersonate 
Rosalind,  but  has  declined  to  undertake  it. 
Shakespeare  appreciated  the  value  of 
music  in  association  with  drama.  There 
are  songs  in  Hamlet^  Othello^  King  Lear, 
and  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  There  are 
passages  m  Macbeth  that  obviously  were 
designed  to  be  chanted.  There  is  need  of 
music  in  the  ghost  scene  in  Julius  Ccesar 
and  in  the  masquerade  scene  in  Romeo  and 
Jidiet.  There  is  use  of  song  in  Kimj  Henry 
IV.  and  in  King  Henry  VHI.  The  come- 
dies abound  with  music.  The  Tempest  and 
^■1  Midsummer  yighfs  Dream  are  excep- 
tionally rich  in  strains  that  must  be  sung  ; 
and  songs  also  occur  in  The  Tv:o  Gentlemen 
of  Verona.,  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
AlVs  Well  Tliat  Ends  Well,  Much  Ado 
About  Nothing,  Love''s  Labour^ s  Lost,  Meas- 
ure for  Measure,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  A 
Winter''s  Tale,  Cymbeline,  Twelfth  Xight, 
and  As  You  Like  It.  Music  has  been  affili- 
ated with  other  plays  of  Shakespeare,  but 
with  these  it  was  associated  by  his  own 


AS  YOU  likp:  it.  i6i 

hand.  In  As  You  Like  It  the  songs  are 
"Under  the  Greenwood  Tree"  (Act  ii., 
sc.  5)  ;  "Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind" 
(Act  ii.,  sc.  7)  ;  "  What  shall  he  have  that 
killed  the  Deer  ?  "  (Act  iv.,  sc.  2)  ;  "It  was 
a  lover  and  his  lass  "  (Act  v.,  sc.  3)  ;  and 
the  verses  allotted  to  Hymen  (Act  v.,  sc.  4), 
"  Then  is  there  mirth  in  heaven,"  and 
"  Wedding  is  great  Juno's  crown."  The 
songs  of  Hymen,  together  with  all  that  re- 
lates to  that  personage,  are  usually  omitted 
in  the  representation  of  this  comedy.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  song  that  is  smig  by 
Sprmg,  commonly  called  the  Cuckoo  Song, 
in  Love's  Labour's  Lost  (Act  v.,  sc.  2), 
"  When  daisies  pied  and  violets  blue,"  was 
long  ago  introduced  into  As  You  Like  It, 
and  for  many  years  of  stage  usage  it  was 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Rosalind,  immedi- 
ately after  the  words  ' '  0,  that  woman  that 
cannot  make  her  fault  her  husband's  occa- 
sion, let  her  never  nurse  her  child  herself, 
for  she  wDl  breed  it  like  a  fool."  The  piu"- 
pose  of  that  introduction  is  obscure.  The 
effect  of  it  has  ever  been  to  smirch  the  ra- 
diant, gleeful  ingenuousness  and  piquant 
banter  of  the  happy-hearted  Rosalind  with 
a  suggested  taint  of  conscious  coarseness. 
The  Cuckoo  Song,  sprightly  and  felicitous 

L 


l62  THE    FOREST    UF    AHDKN. 

ill  itself,  was  set  to  exceedingly  beautiful 
music  by  Dr.  Arne  (1710-1778),  and  it 
appears  to  have  been  first  introduced  into 
.4s  Yo2i  Like  It  in  1747,  at  Drury  Lane,  to 
have  been  allotted  to  Celia,  and  to  have  been 
sung  by  Kitty  Clive.  At  Covent  Garden  in 
1775  Mrs.  Mattocks  sang  it,  and  Mrs.  Mat- 
tocks played  not  Rosalind  but  Celia.  The 
first  Rosalind  that  ever  sang  it  was  Mrs. 
Dancer,  at  Drury  Lane,  in  17G7.  The  airs 
for  the  Greenwood  Tree  and  the  Winter 
AVind  were  written  by  Dr.  Arne  ;  that  of 
the  Deer  Song  was  written  by  Sir  Henry 
Bishop.  It  was  a  Lover  and  his  Lass 
(sung  by  the  Second  Page  in  the  original) 
and  the  verses  of  Hymen  were  set  to  ex- 
quisite melodies  by  William  Linley,  and 
these  were  retained  in  Daly's  arrange- 
ment of  the  piece.  The  Pages  were  kept 
in,  and  the  droll  episode  of  their  singing  to 
Touchstone  was  allowed  to  have  its  rightful 
effect  in  displaying  still  further  the  quaint- 
ness  of  that  wise,  facetious,  lovable  char- 
acter. Altogether  the  lovely  comedy  was 
presented  substantially  as  Shakespeare 
wrote  it  —  in  the  glad  light  of  early  spring- 
time and  in  one  continuous  picture  of 
sylvan  beauty. 


A    MIDSUMMER    XIGHX'S    DKEAM.       163 


xn. 

FAIRY    LAND  ;     A    MIDSUMMER    XIGHT's 
DREAM. 

BECAUSE  Shakespeare,  who  lived  only 
lifty-two  years,  wrote  so  much  within 
that  brief  period,  and  furthermore  because 
he  wrote  with  sucli  transcendent  genius 
and  ability,  it  has  pleased  theoretical  and 
visionary  observers  to  declare  that  he  never 
wrote  at  all.  Shakespeare  viewed  alone, 
they  maintain,  is  a  miracle,  and  therefore 
an  impossibility ;  but  Shakespeare  and 
Francis  Bacon,  rolled  into  one,  constitute  a 
being  who  is  entirely  natural  and  authentic. 
The  works  of  Shakespeare  and  the  works 
of  Bacon  present,  indeed,  almost  every 
possible  point  of  dissimilarity,  and  no  point 
of  resemblance.  The  man  behind  Shake- 
speare's plays  and  poems  and  the  man 
behind  Bacon's  essays  and  philosophy  are 
absolutely  distinct  from  one  another  and 
as  far  apart  as  the  poles.  The  direct  and 
positive  testimony  of  Shakespeare's  friend 


164  FAIKV    LAND. 

and  professional  associate,  Ben  Jonson  —  a 
close  observer,  a  stern  critic,  a  truth-teller, 
a  moralist,  not  over-amiable  in  his  com- 
mentary upon  human  nature,  and  neither 
prone  to  error  nor  liable  to  credulity  —  tells 
the  world,  not  only  that  Shakecpeare  wrote, 
but  in  what  mamier  he  wrote.  The  assump- 
tion, implied  in  the  Bacon  theory,  that  a 
poet  capable  of  writing  Hamlet^  Macbeth, 
Lear,  and  Othello  iiithuT  would  or  could,  for 
any  reason  whatever,  wish  to  escape  the 
imputation  of  their  authorship,  is  obviously 
absurd.  The  idea  that  Shakespeare,  hired 
by  Bacon  to  father  those  plays,  could  for  a 
period  of  years  go  in  and  out  among  the 
actors  and  the  authors  of  his  time,  and  so 
impose  upon  their  sagacity  and  elude  their 
jealous  scrutiny  as  to  keep  the  secret  of  this 
gigantic  fraud,  is  simply  ludicrous.  The 
notion  that  the  man  who  wrote  Shake- 
speare's poems  —  and  those,  admittedly, 
were  the  work  of  William  Shakespeare  — 
was  the  kind  of  man  to  lend  himself  to  any 
scheme  of  imposture  is  repudiated  by  every 
intimation  of  character  that  those  poems 
contain ;  and  the  same  may  rightfully  Ik- 
said  of  the  man  who  wrote  Shakespeare's 
plays.  The  fact  that  the  plays,  which  these 
theorists  would  deny  to  Shakespeare's  pen, 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGIIT'S    DREAM.        165 

are  entirely,  absolutely,  and  incontestably 
kindred  with  the  poems,  which  they  cannot 
deny  to  it,  stands  forth  as  clear  as  the  day- 
light. The  associate  fact  that  the  plays 
contain  precisely  such  errors  as  would  nat- 
urally be  made  by  the  untutored  Shake- 
speare, but  could  not  possibly  be  made  by 
the  thoroughly  taught  and  erudite  Bacon, 
is  likewise  distinctly  visible.  Yet,  all  the 
same  —  because  Shakespeare,  like  Burns, 
spnuig  from  a  family  in  humble  station, 
and  was  but  poorly  schooled  —  this  prepos- 
terous doctrine  persistently  rears  its  foolish 
head,  and  insults  with  idle  chatter  the 
Shakespearean  scholarship  of  the  world.  A 
prominent  representative  dramatist,  Dion 
Boucicault,  had  the  astounding  folly  to 
announce  an  hypothesis  —  apparently  in- 
tended to  be  taken  in  earnest  —  that  Shake- 
speare's Hamlet  was  written  by  Jonson, 
Webster,  Dekker,  and  Alleyne,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Shakespeare,  and  under  his  super- 
vision ;  a  doctrine  which,  to  any  student 
acquainted  with  those  writers  and  their 
times,  is  deplorably  idle.  For  if  there 
be  in  literature  any  work  which,  from  the 
first  line  to  the  last,  and  in  everj'  word 
and  syllable  of  it,  bears  the  authentic 
pressure   of  one  creative  and  predominant 


1 66  FAIRY  I. and: 

luiiid  —  the  broad-hoaded  arrow  of  iiii- 
jK-rial  dominion  —  that  work  is  Ildmlct. 
Siiakespeare's  style,  once  known,  can  never 
be  mistaken.  No  man  of  his  time,  with  the 
single  exception  of  John  Fletcher,  could 
write  in  anything  like  his  peculiar  strain  of 
simplicity  and  power.  In  some  of  the  his- 
torical plays  there  are  traces  of  collabora- 
tion —  as  all  readers  know ;  but  in  his 
gi-eater  plays  the  only  hand  that  is  visible 
is  the  hand  of  Shakespeare. 

This  is  especially  true  of  A  Midsummer 
Nighfs  Dream,  and  probably  no  better 
mental  exercise  than  the  analysis  of  the 
style  and  spirit  and  component  elements  of 
that  piece  could  be  devised  for  those  per- 
sons—  if  any  such  there  be  —  who  incline 
to  entertain  either  the  Bacon  theory  or  the 
collaboration  theory  of  the  authorship  of 
Shakespeare.  Bacon,  if  his  avowed  writ- 
ings may  be  taken  as  the  denotement  of 
his  mind,  could  no  more  have  written  that 
play  than  he  could  have  flown  on  wings  of 
paper  over  the  spire  of  St.  Paul's  ;  nor  does 
it  exhibit  the  slightest  deviation  from  one 
invariable  poetic  mind  and  temperament. 
Sh.akespeare's  fancy  takes  a  free  range  here, 
and  revels  in  beauty  and  joy.  The  Dream 
was  first  published   in   1000 ;  the   earliest 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHT's    DREAM.       1 67 

allusion  made  to  it  is  that  of  Francis  Meres, 
in  Palladis  Tamia,  in  1598  ;  and  probably 
it  was  written  as  early  as  1594,  when 
Shakespeare  was  thirty  years  old.  A  sig- 
nificant reference  to  the  subject  of  it  occurs 
in  the  second  scene  of  the  second  act  of  the 
Comedy  of  Errors  (1589-1591),  which  has 
been  thought  to  indicate  that  the  poet  had 
already  considered  and  perhaps  conceived 
it :  he  was  working  with  wise  and  incessant 
industry  at  that  time,  and  the  amazing  fer- 
tility of  his  creative  genius  was  beginning 
to  reveal  itself.  The  Dream  is  absolutely 
of  his  own  invention.  The  names  of  the 
characters,  together  with  a  few  incidents, 
he  derived  from  Plutarch,  Ovid,  and  Chau- 
cer —  authors  with  whom  he  shows  himself 
to  have  been  acquainted.  The  story  of 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe  occurs  in  Ovid,  and 
a  translation  of  that  Latin  poet,  made  by 
Arthur  Golding,  was  current  in  Shake- 
speare's day.  It  is  thought  that  the  Kn  ighfs 
Tale  and  Tysbe  of  Bahtjlone,  by  Chaucer, 
may  have  been  the  means  of  suggesting 
this  play  to  Shakespeare,  but  his  storj'  and 
his  characters  are  his  own.  And  although, 
as  Dr.  Johnson  observes,  fairies  were  in  his 
time  fashionable,  and  Spenser's  Faerie 
Queene  had  made  them  gTeat,  Shakespeare 


1 68  FAIRY  land: 

was  the  first  to  interblend  them  with  the 
proceedings  of  mortals  in  a  drama.  The 
text  of  the  piece  is  considered  to  be  excep- 
tionally free  from  error  or  any  sort  of 
defect.  Two  editions  of  the  Dream,  quarto, 
appeared  in  1600  —  one  published  by  Thomas 
Fisher,  bookseller ;  the  other  by  James 
Roberts,  printer.  The  Fisher  publication 
had  been  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  Octo- 
ber 8,  that  year,  and  probably  it  was  sanc- 
tioned by  the  author.  The  two  editions  do 
not  materially  differ,  and  the  modern 
Shakespearean  editors  have  made  a  judicious 
use  of  both  in  their  choice  of  the  text. 
The  play  was  not  again  printed  until  1623, 
when  it  appeared  in  the  first  folio.  It  is 
not  known  which  was  first  of  the  Fisher 
and  the  Roberts  quartos,  or  which  was 
authorised.  Each  of  those  quartos  consists 
of  32  leaves.  Neither  of  them  distinguishes 
the  acts  or  scenes.  In  the  first  folio 
(1623)  the  Dream  occupies  18  pages,  from 
p.  145  to  p.  162  inclusive,  in  the  section 
devoted  to  comedies  —  the  acts,  but  not  the 
scenes,  being  distinguished.  The  editors 
of  that  folio,  Heminge  and  Condell,  fol- 
lowed the  text  of  the  Roberts  quarto.  The 
memory  of  one  of  the  actors  who  appeared 
in  the  Dream  in  its  earliest  days  is  curi- 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHT'S    DREAM.       1 69 

oiisly  preserved  in  a  stage-direction,  printed 
in  the  first  folio,  in  Act  v.,  sc.  i. :  "Ta^\-}-er 
with  a  trumpet."  The  piece  appears  in 
the  later  folios,  —  1G32,  1663-64,  and  1685. 
A  Midsummer  Xtght's  Dream  was  popular 
in  Shakespeare's  time.  Mention  of  it,  as 
impliedly  a  play  in  general  knowledge  and 
acceptance,  was  made  by  Taylor,  the  water 
poet,  in  1622. 

A  piece  called  The  Fairy  Queen,  beiiig 
Shakespeare's  comedy,  with  music  by  Pur- 
cell,  i  was  published  in  London  in  1692.  It 
had  been  acted  there,  at  the  Haymarket  — 
the  presentation  being  made  with  fine 
scenery  and  elaborate  mechanism.  There 
is  another  old  piece,  called  The  Merry- Con- 
ceited Humours  of  Bottom  the  Weaver. 
This  was  made  out  of  an  episode  in  the 
Dream,  and  it  is  included  in  the  collection 
of  farces  attributed  to  Robert  Cox.  a  come- 
dian of  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  published  in 
1672.  A  comic  masque,  by  Richard  Lever- 
idge,  similarly  derived,  entitled  Pyraraus 
and  Tliisbe,  was  performed  at  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields  theatre,  and  was  published  in 
1716.  Two  other  musical  farces,  with  this 
same  title  and  origin,  are  recorded — one 

1  Henry  Purcell,  165S-1695,  and  Thomas  rurcell, 
1682,  were  both  musical  composers. 


170  FAIRY    LAM)  : 

by  Mr.  Lainpe,  acted  at  Coveiit  Garden, 
and  published  in  1740  ;  the  other  by  W.  C. 
Oulton,  acted  at  liirniinghani,  and  pub- 
lished in  1798.  Garrick  made  an  acting 
copy  of  A  Midsummer  Nir/ht's  Dream  — 
adding  to  the  text  as  well  as  curtailing  it, 
and  introducing  songs  —  and  this  was  played 
at  Drury  Lane,  where  it  failed,  and  was 
published  in  1763.  Colman  reduced  Gar- 
rick's  piece  to  two  acts,  and  called  it  A 
Fairy  Tale,  and  in  this  form  it  was  tried  at 
Drury  Lane,  and  published  in  1704  and 
1777.  Colman,  however,  wrote:  "I  was 
little  more  than  a  godfather  on  the  occasion, 
and  the  alterations  should  have  been  sub- 
scribed Anon."  The  best  production  of 
this  comedy  ever  accomplished  on  the  Eng- 
lish stage  was  that  effected  by  Charles 
Kean,  at  the  Princess's  theatre,  London,  — 
managed  by  him  from  August  1850  till 
August  29,  1859. 

The  first  performance  of  A  Midsummer 
Night''s  Dream  given  in  America  occurred 
at  the  old  Park  theatre,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  Mrs.  Hilson,  on  November  9,  1826. 
Ireland,  in  his  valuable  records,  has  pre- 
served a  part  of  the  cast,  rescued  from  a 
mutilated  copy  of  the  playbill  of  that  night : 
Theseus,  Mr.  Lee ;    Bottom,   Mr.    Hilson  ; 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHTS    DREAM.        IJI 

Snout,  Mr,  Placide  ;  Obcron,  Peter  Rich- 
iiigs ;  Puck,  Mrs.  Hilson ;  Titania,  Mrs. 
Sharpe  ;  Hippolita,  Mrs.  Stickney  ;  Hermia, 
Mrs.  Hackett.  On  August  30,  1841  the 
comedy  was  again  revived  at  that  theatre, 
with  a  cast  that  included  ]SIr,  Fredericks 
as  Theseus,  W.  H.  Williams  as  Bottom, 
Mrs.  Knight  as  Puck,  Charlotte  Cushman 
as  Oberon,  ]Maiy  Taylor  as  Titania,  Susan 
Cushman  as  Helena,  Mrs.  Groves  as  Hippo- 
lita, Miss  Buloid  (afterward  Mrs.  Abbott) 
as  Hermia,  and  "William  Wheatley  as  Ly- 
sander.  The  next  revivals  came  on  Febru- 
ary 3  and  6,  1854,  at  Burton's  theatre  and 
at  the  Broadway  theatre,  rival  houses,  with 
these  casts  : 

At  Broadicay.  At  Burton's. 

Theseus F.  B.  Conway Charles  Fisher. 

Lysander..  .Lannergan George  Jordan. 

Demetrius.  .Grosvenor AV.  H.  Xorton. 

Egeus Matthews Moore. 

Bottom William  Davidge  . . .  .W.  E.  Burton. 

Quince Howard T.  Johnston. 

Flute Whiting G.  Barrett. 

Snug Fisk Russell. 

Snout Henry G.  Andrews. 

Puck Viola  Crocker Parsloe. 

Oberon Mme.  Ponisi Miss  E.  Raymond. 

Titania Mrs.  Abbott Mrs.  Burton. 

Hippolita. .  .Mrs.  Warren Mrs.  J.  Cooke. 

Hermia Mrs.  Xagle Mrs.  Hough. 

Helena A.  Gougenheim Mrs.  Buckland. 


172  FAiuY  land: 

Great  stress,  in  both  cases,  was  laid  upon 
Mendelssohn's  music.  At  each  house  it 
ran  for  a  month.  It  was  not  revived  in 
New  York  again  until  April  18,  1859,  when 
Laura  Keene  brought  it  forward  at  her 
theatre,  and  kept  it  on  till  May  28,  with 
C.  W.  Couldock  as  Theseus,  Williain  Kufus 
Blake  as  Bottom,  Miss  Macarthy  as  Oberon, 
Miss  Stevens  as  Helena,  Ada  Clifton  as 
Hermia,  and  herself  as  Puck.  It  was  a  fail- 
ure. Even  Blake  failed  as  Bottom,  —  an 
acute  critic  of  that  period,  Edward  G.  P. 
AVilkins,  describing  the  performance  as 
"not  funny,  not  even  grotesque,  but  vul- 
gar and  unpleasant."  Charles  Peters  was 
good  as  Thisbe.  The  stage  version  used 
was  made  by  Richard  Grant  White.  That 
same  theatre  subsequently  became  the 
Olympic  (not  Mitchell's,  but  the  second  of 
that  name),  and  there,  on  October  28, 1867, 
under  the  management  of  James  E.  Hayes 
and  the  direction  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  who 
had  brought  from  London  a  Grecian  pan- 
orama by  Telbin,  A  Midsummer  Nighfs 
Dream  was  again  offered,  with  a  cast 
that  included  G.  L.  Fox  as  Bottom,  W. 
Davidge  as  Quince,  Owen  Marlowe  as 
Flute,  Cornelia  Jefferson  as  Titania,  and 
Clara    Fisher    as    Peasblossom.      Telbin' s 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHT's   DREAM.       1 73 

panorama  displayed  the  countiy  supposed 
to  lie  between  Athens  and  the  forest 
wherein  the  Fairy  Queen  and  the  lovers 
are  enchanted  and  bewitched  and  the  sapi- 
ent Bottom  is  "translated."  Fox  under- 
took Bottom,  for  the  first  time,  and  he  was 
drolly  consequential  and  stolidly  conceited 
in  it.  Landseer's  famous  picture  of  Titania 
and  the  ass-headed  Bottom  was  copied  in 
one  of  the  scenes.  Mr.  Hayes  provided 
a  shining  tableau  at  the  close.  Mendels- 
sohn's music  was  played  and  sung,  with 
excellent  skill  and  effect  —  the  chief  vocal- 
ist being  Clara  Fisher.  Owen  Marlowe,  as 
Thisbe,  gave  a  burlesque  of  the  manner 
of  Eachel.  The  comedy,  as  then  given, 
ran  for  one  hundred  nights  —  from  Octo- 
ber 28,  1867  till  February  1,  1868.  The 
stage  version  used  was  that  of  Charles 
Kean. 

The  next  production  of  A  Midsummer 
NifjhVs  Dream  was  effected  by  Augustin 
Daly,  at  the  Grand  Opera  House,  on  August 
19,  1873.  The  scenery  then  employed 
was  of  extraordinary  beauty  —  delicate  in 
colour,  sensuous  in  feeling,  sprightly  in 
fancy.  Fox  again  played  Bottom.  The 
attentive  observer  of  the  stage  version 
made  by  Augustin  Daly, — and  conspicu- 


174  FAIKY    LAND  : 

ously  used  by  him  when  he  revived  the 
piece  at  his  theatre  on  January  31,  1888, — 
would  observe  tliat  much  new  and  effective 
stage  business  was  introduced.  The  disposi- 
tion of  the  groups  at  the  start  was  fresh,  and 
so  was  the  treatment  of  the  quarrel  between 
Oberon  and  Titania,  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  Indian  child.  The  moonlight 
effects,  in  the  transition  from  act  second 
to  act  third,  and  the  gradual  assembly 
of  goblins  and  fairies  in  shadowy  mists 
through  which  the  fire-flies  glimmered,  at  the 
close  of  act  third,  were  novel  and  beautiful. 
Cuts  and  transpositions  were  made  at  the 
end  of  the  fourth  act,  in  order  to  close 
it  with  the  voyage  of  the  barge  of  Theseus, 
through  a  summer  landscape,  on  the  silver 
stream  that  rippled  down  to  Athens.  The 
third  act  was  judiciously  compressed,  so 
that  the  spectator  might  not  see  too  much 
of  the  perplexed  and  wrangling  lovers. 
But  little  of  the  original  text  was  omitted. 
The  music  for  the  choruses  was  selected 
from  various  English  composers  —  that  of 
Mendelssohn  being  prescribed  only  for  the 
orchestra. 

The  accepted  doctrine  of  traditional 
criticism — a  doctrine  made  seemingly  po- 
tent by   reiteration  —  that  A  Midsummer 


A    MIDSUMMEE    NIGHTS    DREAM.       1 75 

Xighfs  Dream  is  not  for  the  stage,  need 
not  necessarily  be  considered  final.  Haz- 
litt  was  the  fii'st  to  insist  on  that  idea. 
"Poetry  and  the  stage,"  said  that  famous 
writer,  "  do  not  agree  well  together.  The 
attempt  to  reconcile  them,  m  this  instance, 
fails  not  only  of  effect,  but  of  decorum. 
The  ideal  can  have  no  place  upon  the  stage, 
which  is  a  picture  without  perspective. 
The  imagination  cannot  sufficiently  qualify 
the  actual  impression  of  the  senses."  But 
this  is  only  saying  that  there  are  difficul- 
ties. The  remark  applies  to  all  the  higher 
forms  of  dramatic  literature  ;  and,  logically, 
if  that  doctrine  were  observed  in  practice, 
none  of  the  great  plays  would  be  attempted. 
A  Midsummer  A^ighfs  Dream,  with  all  its 
ideal  spirit,  is  dramatic  ;  it  ought  not  to  be 
lost  to  the  stage  ;  and  to  some  extent,  cer- 
tainly, the  difficulties  can  be  surmounted. 
In  the  spirit  of  a  dream  the  play  was  writ- 
ten, and  in  the  spirit  of  a  dream  it  can  be 
acted. 

The  student  of  A  Midsummer  Xighfs 
Dream,  as  often  as  he  thinks  upon  that 
lofty  and  lovely  expression  of  a  luxuriant 
and  happy  poetic  fancy,  must  necessarily 
find  himself  impressed  with  its  exquisite 
purity  of  spirit,  its  affluence  of  invention, 


176  FAIKY    LAN1>: 

its  extraordinary  wealth  of  contrasted  char- 
acters, its  absolute  symmetry  of  form,  and 
its  great  beauty  of  poetic  diction.  The  es- 
sential cleanliness  and  sweetness  of  Shake- 
speare's mind,  imaffected  by  the  gross 
animalism  of  his  time,  appear  conspicuously 
in  that  play.  No  single  trait  of  the  piece 
impresses  the  reader  more  agreeably  than 
its  frank  display  of  the  spontaneous,  natu- 
ral, and  entirely  delightful  exultation  of 
Theseus  and  Hippolita  in  their  approaching 
nuptials.  They  are  grand  creatures,  and 
they  rejoice  in  each  other  and  in  their  per- 
fectly accordant  love.  Nowhere  in  Shake- 
speare is  there  a  more  imperial  man  than 
Theseus ;  nor,  despite  her  feminine  impa- 
tience of  dulness,  a  woman  more  royal 
and  more  essentially  woman-like  than  Hip- 
polita. It  is  thought  that  the  immediate 
impulse  of  that  comedy,  in  Shakespeare's 
mind,  was  the  marriage  of  his  friend  and 
benefactor  the  Earl  of  Southampton  with 
Elizabeth  Vernon  —  which,  while  it  did 
not  in  fact  occur  till  1598,  was  probably 
agreed  upon,  and  had  received  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth's sanction,  as  early  as  1504-95.  In 
old  English  literature  it  is  seen  that  such  a 
theme  often  proved  suggestive  of  ribaldry  ; 
but  Shakespeare  could  preserve  the  sane- 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHTS    DKEAM.       I// 

tity  even  while  he  revelled  in  the  passion- 
ate ardour  of  love  ;  and  A  Midsummer 
Xighfs  Dream,  while  it  possesses  the  rosy- 
glow,  the  physical  thrill,  and  the  melting 
tenderness  of  such  pieces  as  Herrick's 
Xuptia.ll  Song,  is  likewise  fraught  with  the 
moral  elevation  and  unaffected  chastity  of 
such  pieces  as  Milton's  Comus.  Human 
nature  is  shown  in  it  as  feeling  no  shame 
in  its  elemental  passions,  and  as  having  no 
reason  to  feel  ashamed  of  them.  The  at- 
mosphere is  free  and  bracing;  the  tone 
honest ;  the  note  true.  Then,  likewise, 
the  fertility  and  felicity  of  the  poet's  in- 
vention —  intertwining  the  loves  of  earthly 
sovereigns  and  of  their  subjects  with  the 
dissensions  of  fairy  monarchs,  the  pranks 
of  mischievous  elves,  the  protective  care  of 
attendant  sprites,  and  the  comic  but  kind- 
hearted  and  well-meant  fealty  of  boorish 
peasants — arouse  lively  interest  and  keep 
it  steadily  alert.  In  no  other  one  of  his 
works  has  Shakespeare  more  brilliantly 
shown  that  complete  dominance  of  theme 
which  is  manifested  in  the  perfect  preser- 
vation of  proportion.  The  strands  of  action 
are  braided  with  astonishing  grace.  The 
fourfold  story  is  never  allowed  to  lapse 
into  dulness  or  obscurity.    There  is  caprice, 

M 


178  FAIRY    land: 

l)ut  no  distortion.  The  supernatural  ma- 
chinery is  never  ^vrested  toward  the  pro- 
duction of  startling  or  monstrous  effects, 
but  it  deftly  impels  each  mortal  personage 
in  the  natural  line  of  human  development. 
The  dream-spirit  is  maintained  through- 
out, and  perhaps  it  is  for  that  reason  — 
that  the  poet  was  living,  thinking,  writing 
in  the  free,  untrammelled  world  of  his 
spacious  and  airy  imagination  and  not  in 
any  definite  sphere  of  this  earth  —  that  A 
Midsummer  NiyJiVs  Dream  is  radically 
superior  to  the  other  comedies  written 
by  him  at  about  the  same  period,  The 
Ttco  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  The  Comedy  of 
Errors,  Love'^s  Labonr''s  Lost,  and  Tfie 
Taming  of  the  Shrew.  His  genius  over- 
flows in  this  piece,  and  the  rich  excess 
of  it  is  seen  in  passages  of  exquisite 
poetry  —  such  as  the  beautiful  speeches  of 
Titania  and  Oberon,  in  the  second  act  — 
over  against  which  is  set  that  triumph  of 
humour,  that  immortal  Interlude  of  Fyi-a- 
mns  and  Tliishe,  which  is  the  father  of  all 
the  burlesques  in  our  language,  and  which, 
for  freshness,  pungency  of  apposite  satire, 
and  general  applicability  to  the  foible  of 
§elf-love  in  human  nature  and  to  igno- 
rance  and   folly   in   human   affairs,  might 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHTS    DREAM.       1 79 

have  been  written  yesterday.  The  only 
faults  in  this  play  are  a  slight  tinge  of 
monotony  in  the  third  act,  concerning  the 
lovers  in  the  wood,  and  an  excess  of 
rhymed  passages  in  the  text  throughout. 
Shakespeare  had  not  yet  cast  aside  that 
custom  of  rhyme  which  was  in  vogue  when 
he  came  first  upon  the  scene.  But  those 
defects  are  trifles.  The  beauties  overwhelm 
them.  It  would  take  many  pages  to  enu- 
merate and  fitly  to  descant  on  the  felicities 
of  literature  that  we  owe  to  this  comedy  — 
gems  such  as  the  famous  passage  on  ' '  the 
course  of  true  love"  ;  the  regal  picture  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  as  "  a  fair  vestal  throned 
by  the  west"  ;  the  fine  description  of  the 
stormy  summer  (that  of  1594  in  England, 
according  to  Stow's  Chronicle  and  Dr. 
Simon  Forman's  Diary)  ;  the  vision  of 
Titania  asleep  upon  the  bank  of  wild 
thyme,  oxlips,  and  violets ;  the  eloquent 
contrasts  of  lover,  madman,  and  poet,  each 
subdued  and  impelled  by  that  "strong 
imagination"  which  "bodies  forth  the 
forms  of  things  unknown ' '  ;  and  the  won- 
derfully spirited  lines  on  the  hounds  of 
Sparta,  —  "  with  ears  that  swept  away  the 
morning  dew."  In  character  likewise,  and 
in  those  salutary  lessons  that  the  truthful 


I  So  FAIKY    LAND  : 

portraiture  of  cliaracter  invariably  teaches, 
this  piece  is  exceptionally  strong.  Helena, 
noble  and  loving,  yet  a  little  perverted 
from  dignity  by  her  sexual  infatuation ; 
Hermia,  shrewish  and  violent,  despite  her 
feminine  sweetness,  and  possibly  because 
of  her  impetuous  and  clinging  ardour ; 
Demetrius  and  Lysander,  each  selfish  and 
fierce  in  his  love,  but  manly,  straightfor- 
ward fellows,  abounding  more  in  youth 
and  desire  than  in  brains  ;  Bottom,  the 
quintessence  of  bland,  unconscious  egotism 
and  self-conceit ;  and  Theseus,  the  princely 
gentleman  and  typical  ruler  —  these  make 
up  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  signifi- 
cant groups  that  can  be  found  in  fiction. 
The  self-centred  nature,  the  broad-minded 
view,  the  magnanimous  spirit,  the  calm 
adequacy,  the  fine  and  high  manner  of 
Theseus,  make  that  character  alone  the 
inspiration  of  the  comedy  and  a  most 
potent  lesson  upon  the  conduct  of  life. 
Through  certain  of  his  people  —  such  as 
Ulysses  in  Troilus  and  Cressida.,  the  Duke 
in  Measure  for  Measure,  and  Prospero  in 
The  Temx>est  —  the  voice  of  Shakespeare 
himself,  speaking  personally,  is  clearly 
heard ;  and  it  is  heard  also  in  Theseus. 
"The  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows," 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHTS    DREAM.       l8l 

says  that  wise  observer  of  life,  when  he 
comes  to  speak  of  tlie  actors  who  copy  it, 
'•  and  the  worst  are  no  worse,  if  imagina- 
tion amend  them,"  There  is  no  higher 
strain  of  princelike  courtesy  and  consider- 
ate grace,  even  in  the  perfect  breeding  of 
Hamlet,  than  is  visible  in  the  preference  of 
Theseus  for  the  play  of  the  hard-handed 
men  of  Athens  :  — 

"  Never  anything  can  be  amiss 
When  simpleness  and  duty  tender  it.  .  .  . 
And  what  poor  duty  cannot  do 
Xoble  respect  takes  it  in  might,  not  merit." 

With  reference  to  the  question  of  suitable 
method  in  the  acting  of  A  Midsummer 
Xighfs  Dream  it  may  be  observed  that  too 
much  stress  can  scarcely  be  laid  upon  the 
fact  that  this  comedy  was  conceived  and 
written  absolutely  in  the  spirit  of  a  dream. 
It  ought  not.  therefore,  to  be  treated  as  a 
rational  manifestation  of  orderly  design. 
It  possesses,  indeed,  a  coherent  and  sym- 
metrical plot  and  a  definite  purpose  ;  but, 
while  it  moves  toward  a  final  result  of  abso- 
lute order,  it  presupposes  intermediary  prog- 
ress through  a  realm  of  motley  shapes  and 
fantastic  vision.  Its  persons  are  creatures 
of  the  fancy,  and  all  effort  to  make  them 


I«2  FAIRY    LAND  : 

solidly  actual,  to  set  them  firmly  upon  the 
earth,  and  to  accept  them  as  realities  of 
common  life,  is  labour  ill-bestowed.  To 
body  forth  the  form  of  things  is,  in  this 
case,  manifestly,  a  difficult  task :  and  yet 
the  true  course  is  obvious.  Actors  who 
yield  themselves  to  the  spirit  of  whim,  and 
drift  along  with  it,  using  a  delicate  method 
and  avoiding  insistence  upon  prosy  realism, 
will  succeed  with  this  piece  —  provided, 
also,  that  their  audience  can  be  fanciful, 
and  can  accept  the  performance,  not  as  a 
comedy  of  ordinary  life  but  as  a  vision  seen 
in  a  dream.  The  play  is  full  of  intimations 
that  this  was  Shakespeare's  mood.  Even 
Bottom,  the  consunniiate  flower  of  uncon- 
scious humour,  is  at  his  height  of  signifi- 
cance in  his  moment  of  supreme  illusion  : 
"I  have  had  a  dream, — past  the  wit  of 
man  to  say  what  dream  it  was  :  —  Man  is 
but  an  ass  if  he  go  about  to  expound  this 
dream.  Methought  I  was  —  there  is  no 
man  can  tell  what.  Methought  I  was,  and 
methought  I  had —  But  man  is  but  a 
patched  fool  if  he  will  offer  to  say  what  me- 
thought I  had.  The  eye  of  man  hath  not 
heard,  the  ear  of  man  hath  not  seen,  man's 
hand  is  not  able  to  taste,  his  tongue  to  con- 
ceive, nor  his  heart  to   report,  what  my 


A    MIDSUMMER    NIGHT'S    DRP:AM.       183 

dream  was."  The  whole  philosophy  of  the 
subject,  comically  stated,  is  there.  A  serious 
statement  of  it  is  in  the  words  of  the  poet 
Campbell :  — 

"  Well  may  sleep  present  us  fictions, 
Since  our  waking  moments  teem 
With  such  fanciful  convictions 
As  make  life  itself  a  dream," 

Various  actors  in  the  past  —  although  A 
Midsummer  Xight'S  Dream  has  not  had 
great  currency  upon  the  stage,  at  any  period, 
whether  in  England  or  America  —  have  laid 
a  marked  stress  upon  the  character  of 
Bottom.  Samuel  Phelps,  upon  the  London 
stage,  was  esteemed  excellent  in  it.  He 
acted  the  part  in  his  production  of  the 
Dream,  at  Sadler's  Wells,  and  he  again 
acted  it  in  1870  at  the  Queen's  theatre,  in 
Long  Acre  —  now  demolished.  On  the 
American  stage  William  E.  Burton  was  ac- 
counted wonderfully  good  in  it.  "  As  Bur- 
ton renders  the  character,"  says  Richard 
Grant  AYhite,  "  its  traits  are  brought  out 
with  a  delicate  and  masterly  hand ;  its 
humour  is  exquisite."  And  William  L. 
Keese,  in  his  careful  biography  of  Burton, 
makes  equally  cordial  reference  to  that 
achievement  of  the  sreat  comedian :  "  How 


184  FAIIIY    LAND: 

Striking  it  was  in  sustained  individuality, 
and  how  finely  exemplified  was  the  poten- 
tial vanity  of  Bottom  !  What  pleased  us 
greatly  was  the  vein  of  engaging  raillery 
which  ran  through  the  delivery  of  his 
speeches  to  the  fairies."  Burton  produced 
the  Dream  at  his  theatre,  in  1854,  with 
such  wealth  of  fine  scenery  as  in  those  days 
was  accounted  prodigious.  The  most  nota- 
ble impersonation  of  Bottom  that  has  been 
given  since  Burton's  time  was,  proba- 
bly, that  of  George  L.  Fox.  Self-conceit, 
as  the  essence  of  the  character,  was  thor- 
oughly well  understood  and  expressed  by 
him.  He  wore  the  ass's  head,  but  he  did 
not  know  that  he  was  wearing  it ;  and  when, 
afterward,  the  vague  sense  of  it  came  upon 
him  for  an  instant,  he  put  it  by  as  some- 
thing inconceivable  and  intolerable.  His 
"  Not  a  word  of  me  !  "  —  spoken  to  the  ether 
hard-handed  men  of  Athens,  after  his  re- 
turn to  them  out  of  the  enchanted  ' '  palace 
wood  ' '  —  was  his  finest  single  point.  Cer- 
tainly it  expressed  to  the  utmost  the  colossal 
self-love  and  swelling  pomposity  of  this  mir- 
acle of  bland  and  opaque  sapience.  The 
essential  need  of  acting,  in  a  portrayal  of 
this  play,  is  whimsicality — but  it  must  be 
whimsicality  exalted  by  poetry. 


A    MIDSUMMER    XIGIIT's    DREAM.       1 85 

It  is  remarked  by  Hazlitt  that  "  the  stage 
is  an  epitome,  a  bettered  likeness  of  the 
world,  with  the  dull  part  left  out"  ;  and 
the  fine  thinker  adds,  with  subtle  insight 
and  quaint  wisdom,  that  "  indeed,  with  this 
omission,  it  is  nearly  big  enough  to  hold  all 
the  rest."  There  is  a  profound  and  signifi- 
cant truth  in  that  observation.  Actual  life, 
in  most  of  its  aspects,  is  dull  and  tedious. 
Almost  all  persons  are  commonplace  —  ex- 
cept at  moments.  Almost  all  scenes  are 
insipid  —  except  at  moments.  Nature  will 
not  show  herself  to  you  at  all  times.  The 
glory  of  sunrise  is  revealed  only  once  in  a 
day,  and  even  then  you  will  not  see  it  unless 
you  are  in  the  right  mood.  The  uncommon 
element  in  human  creatures  must  be  awak- 
ened before  they  can  really  discern  any- 
thing. Most  persons  who  have  reached 
middle  age  know  absolutely  nothing  that  is 
worth  knowing  except  what  they  saw  dur- 
ing the  one  brief,  sweet,  youthful  hour  when 
they  were  in  love.  It  is  the  uncommon  ele- 
ment that  endows  man  with  perception,  and 
it  is  the  uncommon  element  that  makes  hu- 
manity interesting.  Common  life  is  barren  ; 
and  sometimes  it  is  worse  than  barren  — 
because  the  contemplation  of  it  is  extremely 
apt  to  engender  a  bitter  contempt  for  hu- 


l86  FAIRY    LAND. 

manity,  as  altogether  vacuous,  frivolous, 
and  trivial.  The  world  of  art  has  no  room 
for  the  commonplace.  No  properly  organ- 
ised mind  vs^ill  ever  be  contented  with  a 
photograph  if  it  can  get  anything  better. 
We  do  not  wish  to  know  what  people  are,  in 
their  ordinary  state.  We  know,  only  too 
well,  that  human  nature,  in  its  average  con- 
dition, is  full  of  selfishness,  envy,  malice, 
and  greed.  There  is  no  circle  into  which 
any  man  enters,  anywhere,  in  which  he  does 
not  invariably  hear  people,  sooner  or  later, 
speaking  ill  of  other  people  behind  their 
backs.  Detraction  is  universal  and  it  is 
perennial.  We  do  not  wish  in  art,  or  in 
anything  else,  to  hear  the  small  talk,  the 
cackle,  the  babble  of  everyday  life.  Hu- 
manity should  be  contemplated  in  its  ideal- 
ised aspects.  Shakespeare  has  endured, 
and  he  will  endure  forever  (not,  perhaps, 
upon  the  stage,  from  which  an  effort  is 
already  in  formidable  progress  to  exclude 
him,  as  being  archaic  and  not  contempora- 
neous), because,  while  absolutely  true  to 
truth  in  his  reflections  of  human  nature,  he 
idealised  and  transfigured  it. 


love's  labour's  lost.  187 


XIII. 

WILL    O'   THE    wisp:    LOVE's  LABOUR'S    LOST. 

THE  subject  of  this  comedy  is  self-culture 
—  a  subject  that  commends  itself  to  the 
attention  of  young  men,  and  one  that  has 
frequently  been  treated  by  young  authors. 
Shakespeare  obviously  was  a  young  author 
when  he  wrote  Zore's  Labour'' s  Lost;  yet 
in  this  case,  while  the  subject  has  been 
viewed  with  youthful  enthusiasm,  it  has  also 
been  viewed  with  the  intuition  of  genius. 
The  idea  of  natural  development  that  lies 
imbedded  in  the  structure  of  this  work  is 
absolutely  sound  and  true.  Mental  culti- 
vation is  a  noble  pursuit  (so  Shakespeare 
seems  now  to  declare),  but  the  nature  of 
man  is  not  exclusively  intellectual ;  it  is 
also  physical  and  spiritual ;  it  comprises 
passions  and  affections.  Man  was  not 
intended  to  live  a  monastic  life.  Love  is  in 
this  world,  as  well  as  Thought,  and  the" 
true  conduct  of  existence  will  not  be  ascetic, 
but  vital,  free,  simple,  cheerful,  and  happy. 


i88  WILL  o'  THE  wisp: 

The  King  of  Navarre  and  his  three  chosen 
lords,  ]iiron,  Longaville,  and  J)uniain  — 
who  typify  at  first  a  favourite  theory  of 
youth,  the  theory  of  exclusive  devotion  to 
the  ideal  —  may  seclude  themselves  as  care- 
fully as  they  please  ;  but  they  will  presently 
find  that  rebellion  flows  in  their  blood,  and 
as  soon  as  woman  comes  upon  the  scene  of 
their  retreat  —  as  inevitably  she  will  come 
—  their  cool,  stately,  scholastic,  but  tepid, 
barren,  and  insincere  reserve  will  be  ludi- 
crously broken  and  defeated.  This  evi- 
dently is  all  that  the  play  was  intended  to 
mean,  and  this  meaning  it  conveys,  inter- 
mingled with  satire  on  certain  social  foibles 
of  Shakespeare's  early  day,  in  a  forcible, 
direct  manner,  and  in  a  spirit  of  pungent 
tnith  which  neither  youthful  effusiveness 
nor  immaturity  of  style  is  potent  to  invali- 
date. As  far  as  he  could  go  without  much 
experience  Shakespeare  went  in  Lovers 
Lahoiir''s  Lost.  After  he  had  gained  his 
experience  he  went  much  further ;  but  it 
was  still  in  the  same  line  —  as  the  student 
sees  in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 

The  story  of  this  comedy  is  pretty  and 
pleasing,  but  the  piece  does  not  contain 
many  incidents,  and  the  element  of  action 
in  it  is  less  prominent  than  are  the  elements 


LOVE  S    LABOUR  S    LOST.  1 89 

of  poetry  and  humour.  Ferdinand,  King  of 
Navarre,  and  his  three  lords  dedicate  them- 
selves, for  three  years,  to  study.  They  are 
to  dwell  alone.  They  are  to  be  frugal  and 
vigilant.  They  are  to  refrain  from  the 
society  of  ladies.  They  are  to  be  temperate, 
placid,  chaste,  pure,  and  cold.  In  a  word, 
they  are  to  be  dedicated  to  Mind.  The 
King  of  Navarre,  however,  is  obliged  to 
receive  a  visit  from  the  Princess  of  France, 
who  comes  to  him  as  an  ambassador  from 
her  royal  father,  on  a  political  mission,  and 
who  is  accompanied  by  three  of  her  ladies, 
Rosaline,  Maria,  and  Katharine.  These 
are  handsome  young  women,  and  as  soon 
as  they  invade  Navarre's  serene  retreat  the 
four  consecrated  young  men  incontinently 
fall  in  love  with  them,  and  each  endeavours 
to  press  his  suit  in  secret.  All  are  thus  for- 
sworn, and  much  merriment  is  extracted 
from  the  expedient  of  making  each  of  them 
betray  his  secret  to  the  others,  until  they 
all  stand  in  comic  discomfiture  together. 
At  the  last  the  condemnation  of  their  error 
in  making  a  foolish  compact  is  frankly 
spoken,  and  in  words  of  signal  eloquence 
and  beauty,  by  the  wisest  and  merriest  of 
them,  Biron  (in  the  old  copies  of  the  play 
this  name  is  given  as  Berowne),who  from  the 


190  WILL  0    THE  wisr  : 

first  has  only  liumoured  Navarre's  caprice 
for  monasticism  but  has  never  believed  in 
its  wisdom.  Those  lovers  are  much  teased 
and  tantalised  by  the  sparkling  French 
girls,  when  their  droll  predicament  is  dis- 
closed ;  but  in  each  case,  happily,  the  love 
of  the  youths  is  reciprocated,  and  so  a  com- 
fortable pairing  time  is  seen  to  be  imminent ; 
when  suddenly  comes  news  that  the  royal 
father  of  the  Princess  has  died.  There  can 
be  no  nuptials  now,  for  a  year.  Love's 
labour  is  lost.  The  enamoured  King  of 
Navarre  must  prove  his  fidelity  by  patience. 
The  frolicsome  Biron  must  tend  the  sick 
for  a  twelvemonth  and  show  himself  some- 
thing better  than  a  farceur,  in  order  to  be 
worthy  of  his  Rosaline.  In  the  under  plot, 
which  is  suffused  with  eccentric  humour,  the 
fantastical  Spaniard,  Armado,  held  in 
amorous  captivity  by  the  country  wench, 
Jaquenetta,  affords  a  more  broadly  comical 
illustration  of  the  central  truth  which  ani- 
mates this  play.  No  man  can  escape  from 
the  doom  of  love. 

"  Nature  her  custom  holds, 
Let  shame  say  what  it  will." 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  is  pure  invention. 
"The   story  of  it,"  says  Steevens,   "has 


LOVP:  S    LABOUR  S    LOST.  I9I 

most  of  the  features  of  an  ancient  romance." 
"It  would  be  more  correct  to  say,"  ob- 
serves Charles  Knight,  "that  it  has  most 
of  the  features  which  would  be  derived  from 
an  acquaintance  with  the  ancient  romances." 
There  was  no  Ferdinand,  King  of  Navarre, 
and  there  is  no  record  that  any  question 
was  ever  raised  between  France  and  Xa- 
varre  with  reference  to  possessions  in 
Aquitain  —  the  settlement  of  which  is  the 
ostensible  object  of  the  Princess's  visit  to 
Ferdinand's  court.  The  scene  is  laid  in 
Navarre.  The  time  is  Shakespeare's  time  ; 
and  the  piece  has,  accordingly,  to  be  attired 
for  the  stage  in  the  styles  of  raiment  pecul- 
iar to  the  period  of  Henry  IV,  of  France 
(1553-1010),  and  Philip  II.  of  Spain  (1527- 
1598).  The  comedy  drift  in  Shakespeare's 
mind,  from  the  outset  till  the  last,  is  dis- 
tinctly indicated  in  this  piece.  Biron  and 
Rosaline  are  the  precursors  of  Benedick 
and  Beatrice.  Armado  is  the  germ  of  Mal- 
volio.  Jaquenetta  is  a  faint  prelude  both 
to  Maria  and  Audrey.  Dull  gives  a  hint  of 
the  future  Dogberry.  In  Holof ernes,  the 
schoolmaster  —  who  foreshadows  Sir  Hugh 
Evans  —  some  commentators  have  discov- 
ered a  satirical  portraiture  of  John  Florio, 
one  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries,  who 


192  WILL    O     THE    wisp: 

taught  Italian  in  London,  and  made  a  dic- 
tionary of  that  language  called  ^-1  World  of 
Woi'ds ;  but  no  conclusive  evidence  has 
been  adduced  to  sustain  that  notion.  Holo- 
fernes  is  Shakespeare's  satire  on  ridiculous 
pedantry,  just  as  Armado  is  his  satire  on 
ridiculous  affectation,  pomposity,  and  con- 
ceit. Against  those  foolish  things  he  places, 
in  beautiful  contrast,  his  delicious  rural 
melodies —  "  When  daisies  pied  and  violets 
blue,"  and  "  AVhen  icicles  hang  by  the  wall," 
—  and  the  listener  feels  indeed  that  "the 
words  of  Mercury  are  harsh  after  the  songs 
of  Apollo." 

Fifteen  of  Shakespeare's  thirty-seven 
plays  were  published  in  his  lifetime,  the 
comedy  of  Love's  Labour''s  Lost  being  one 
of  them.  The  title  of  the  first  edition, 
quarto,  is  :  "A  pleasant  conceited  comedie 
called  Loues  Labors  Lost.  As  it  was  pre- 
sented before  her  Highnes  this  last  Christ- 
mas. Newly  corrected  and  augmented  by 
W.  Shakespeare.  Imprinted  at  London  by 
W.  W.  for  Cutbert  Burly,  1598."  The 
Highness  indicated  is  Queen  Elizabeth 
(1558-1603),  and  the  Christmas  that  of 
1597.  In  the  first  folio  of  Shakespeare 
(1028)  the  text  of  this  piece  is  the  text  of 
the  quarto,  allowing  for  merely  accidental 


love's  labour's  lost.  193 

discrepancies.  The  errors  of  thie  quarto, 
which  are  numerous,  reappear  in  the  folio. 
Heminge  and  Condell,  when  they  say  "  we 
have  scarce  received  from  him ' '  [Shake- 
speare] "a  blot  in  his  papers,"  are  not  to 
be  taken  too  literally.  They  possibly  pos- 
sessed some  of  Shakespeare's  manuscripts 
and  they  may  have  used  them  as  ' '  copy ' ' 
for  the  printer ;  but  their  folio  seems  to 
show  that  they  must  have  used  as  "copy  " 
some  of  the  prompt-books  of  Shakespeare's 
plays,  obtained  from  the  theatre  —  such 
books  as  may  have  survived  the  destructive 
fire  at  the  Globe  in  1613  —  together  with 
several  of  the  early  quartos.  No  one  knows 
what  has  become  of  Shakespeare's  "  papers  " 
—  or,  indeed,  of  the  papers  of  some 
other  authors  of  Shakespeare's  time.  The 
early  quartos  exist ;  but  no  prompt-book 
has  been  found,  nor  any  piece  of  manu- 
script. It  is  not  unlikely  that  much  if  not 
the  whole  mass  of  the  printer's  "copy" 
that  was  used  in  setting  up  the  folio  of  1623 
was  heedlessly  dispersed  and  destroyed  in 
the  printing-office,  after  the  completion  of 
that  work.  In  those  days  no  such  care  was 
taken,  as  to  matters  of  this  sort,  as  is  ha- 
bitually taken  now.  The  reprint  in  the 
folio   of  Love's  Labour''s  Lost  must  cer- 


194  WILL  o    THE  wisp: 

tainly  have  been  made  from  the  quarto,  for 
both  contain,  in  Act  v.  sc.  2,  the  lines, 
827  to  832,  beginning  "  You  must  be  purged 
too,  your  sins  are  rank" — that  are,  by 
Coleridge  and  others,  judiciously  deemed  a 
superfluous  fragment  from  the  first  draft  of 
the  piece ;  and  also  the  lines  in  Biron's 
speech,  in  Act  iv.  sc.  3,  that  are  inmiedi- 
ately  repeated  in  an  altered  form.  (Lines 
296-317;  paraphrased  in  lines  318-354.)  i 
The  title  of  the  piece  is  questioned.  Some 
editors  of  the  poet  call  it  Love''s  Labour 
Lost;  others  prefer  Love's  Labours  Lost; 
and  still  others  declare  for  Love's  Labour 
is  Lost.  In  the  title  of  the  quarto  no  apos- 
trophe is  used.  In  the  folio  of  1623  the 
play  is  called  Loues  Labour's  Lost.  In 
every  form  the  idea  remains  the  same.  It 
has  been  alleged  that  the  fashion  of  speech 
called  Euphuism,  which  was  prevalent  in 

1  Capell  sagaciously  saw  that  in  this  speech,  from 
"  For  where  would  you  "  lo  "  From  whenf  e  doth 
spring,"  and  from  "  For  wliere  is  any  "  to  "  And  in 
that  vow,"  are  passages  which  the  poet  had  cancelled 
in  the  "  corrected  and  augmented  "  play.  The  same 
occurs  in  Richard  III.,  v.  3,  and,  on  a  much 
sraaller  scale,  however,  in  liomeo  and  Juliet,  iii. 
3,  iv.  1.  —  Keightley.  —  This  is  another  trouble 
for  the  makers  of  "  cyphers  "  —  as  Prof.  Rolfe  has 
pungently  suggested  ;  for  the  validity  of  a  "  cypher  " 
is  vitally  dependent  on  a  i)erfectiy  accurate  text. 


LOVE  S    LABOURS    LOST.  1 95 

polite  society  in  the  reign  of  Gloriana  {Eu- 
pheus,  the  Anatomy  of  Wit,  by  John  Lilly, 
was  published  in  1580  and  Eupheus  and  his 
England  in  1581),  was  the  particular  object 
(jf  Shakespeare's  satire  —  as  indicated  in 
the  character  of  Don  Adriano  de  Armado  ; 
but  it  seems  more  likely  that  he  was  writ- 
ing out  of  a  natural,  humorous  scorn  of 
artificiality  and  pomposity,  and  with  the 
recollection  of  his  early  readmg  still  fresh 
in  mind.  Coleridge  —  perhaps  the  wisest 
thinker  that  ever  wrote  on  Shakespeare  — 
says  :  "  It  is  not  unimportant  to  notice  how 
strong  a  presumption  the  diction  and  allu- 
sions of  this  play  afford  that,  though  Shake- 
speare's acquirements  in  the  dead  lan- 
guages might  not  be  such  as  we  suppose  in 
a  learned  education,  his  habits  had  never- 
theless been  scholastic  and  those  of  a  stu- 
dent. For  a  young  author's  first  work 
almost  always  bespeaks  his  recent  pursuits  ; 
and  his  first  observations  of  life  are  either 
drawn  from  the  immediate  employments 
of'  his  youth  and  from  the  characters  and 
images  most  deeply  impressed  on  his  mind 
in  the  situation  in  which  those  employments 
have  placed  him,  or  else  they  are  fixed  on 
such  objects  and  occurrences  in  the  world 
as  are  easily  connected  with,  and  seem  tc 


196  WILL    O     TIIK    wisp: 

bear  upon,    his   studies   and    the  hitherto 
excUisive  subjects  of  his  meditations." 

In  all  examination  into  the  writings  of 
Shakespeare  the  student  naturally  likes  to 
approach  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  per- 
sonality of  that  wonderful  poet.  Love's 
Lahour''s  Lost  suggests  him  as  he  was  at 
the  beginning  of  his  career.  There  is  no 
immaturity,  indeed,  in  the  mental  sub- 
stance of  the  piece,  in  its  drift  of  thought, 
in  its  conviction  that  no  artificial  scheme  of 
frigid  self-denial  can  withstand  the  pur- 
poses of  nature.  •'  Young  blood  will  but 
obey  an  old  decree."  The  immaturity  is 
mostly  in  the  style,  and  it  is  shown  in  the 
frequency  of  rhymed  passages,  in  the  ca- 
pricious mutations  of  the  verse,  and  in  the 
florid  metaphor  and  the  tumultuous  senti- 
ment. When  completely  formed  the  style 
of  Shakespeare,  while  possessing  the  flexi- 
bility of  the  finest- tempered  steel,  possesses 
also  its  uniform  solidity  and  strength. 
Throughout  much  of  the  language  of  this 
comedy  there  is  a  lack  of  the  power  of  self- 
knowledge  and  self-restraint.  Parts  of  the 
text  are,  indeed,  full  of  sinew  and  tremu- 
lous with  intellectual  vitality.  No  doubt 
the  author  retouched  it  when  he  "  newly 
corrected  and  augmented"  the  piece  for  the 


LOVES    LABOUR  S    LOST.  1 97 

press  in  1598  —  when  he  was  thirty-four 
years  old  and  in  full  vigour.  Biron's  fine 
speech  iu  Act.  iv.,  "  Have  at  ye  then, 
affection's  men  at  arms,"  was  probably 
rewritten  at  that  time.  Yet  parts  of  the 
text  are  diffuse  and  strained,  and  in  the 
contemplation  of  these  the  best  Shake- 
speare scholars  agree  that  the  first  draft  of 
the  comefly  must  have  been  written  when 
the  author  was  a  youth.  This  view  is  con- 
firmed by  the  fact  that  it  is  at  once  senti- 
mental and  satirical ;  that  it  deals  with  that 
extremely  ambitious  theme,  the  conduct  of 
life  ;  that  it  assails  conventional  affecta- 
tions ;  and  that  it  is  reformatory  in  spirit 
and  would  set  matters  right.  That  kind  oi 
zeal  belongs  to  the  springtime  of  the  humar 
mind,  and  it  seldom  endures.  Love's  La- 
hour's  Lost  was  probably  written  as  early 
as  1590,  and  it  may  well  have  preceded 
The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Vei'ona,  which  is 
commonly  set  down  as  Shakespeare's  first 
comedy.  He  had  begim  by  altering  and 
improving  older  plays  —  the  kind  of  work 
that  he  accomplished  in  that  vein  being 
exemplified  by  Pericles,  Titus  Andronicits, 
and  a  portion  of  Henry  VL  But  he  soon 
entered  on  a  pathway  exclusively  his  own. 
He  never  hesitated  to  make  use  of  hints 


198  wii.i.  (T    riiK  wisp: 

derived  from  earlier  or  from  contempora- 
neous works,  either  histories  or  tictioiis  ; 
bnt  whatever  he  touched  was  transfigured 
and  became  new  and  original  in  his  treat- 
ment of  it  and  in  his  unique  and  potent 
style.  Love's  Labour''s  Lost  is  entirely- 
original.  "It  is  apparently  wholly  our 
poet's  own  hivention,"  says  the  judicious 
Keightley,  "as  no  novel,  play,  o^  anything 
else,  at  all  resembling  it,  has  been  dis- 
covered." Another  and  an  equally  signifi- 
cant fact  is  that  it  was  the  first  of  his 
published  plays  that  bore  on  the  title-page 
the  illustrious  name  of  Shakespeare, 

The  eccentric  persons  who  are  anxious  to 
convince  themselves  that  the  works  of  Shake- 
speare were  written  by  somebody  else  might 
perhaps  be  restrained  if  they  would  ponder 
a  little  on  these  facts.  The  earliest  exist- 
ing mention  of  Shakespeare  by  name  is  a 
mention  made  in  the  accounts  of  the  Treas- 
urer of  the  Chamber,  showing  that  he  was 
a  member  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  com- 
pany of  actors,  and  that  he  twice  appeared 
with  Kichard  Burbage  before  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, at  Christmas  1594  — in  his  thirty- 
first  year.  This  fact  shows  his  rank  as  an 
actor.  The  later  mention  of  him,  made  l)y 
Meres  in  Palladis  Tamia,  1598,  shows  that 


LOVE  S    LABOUK  S    LOST.  I99 

he  had  also  been  fertile  and  successful 
as  a  dramatic  author.  "As  Plautus  and 
Seneca  are  accounted  the  best  for  Comedy 
and  Tragedy  among  the  Latines,"  says 
Meres,  "  so  Shakespeare  among  the  English 
is  the  most  excellent  in  both  kinds  for  the 
stage  :  for  Comedy,  witness  his  Gentlemen 
of  Verona,  his  Errors,  his  Love  labors  lost, 
his  Love  labours  wonne,  his  ^lidsummer's 
night  dreame,  and  his  ^lerchant  of  Venice  ; 
for  Tragedy,  his  Richard  the  2,  Richard  the 
3,  Henry  the  4,  King  John,  Titus  Androni- 
cus,  and  his  Romeo  and  Juliet."  The  plays 
thus  named  must  have  been  produced  upon 
the  stage  prior  to  1598.  They  were  accepted, 
not  as  the  work  of  an  unknown,  mysterious 
author,  but  as  the  work  of  William  Shake- 
speare, then  and  there  present  and  visible 
and  in  continual  social  and  professional  in- 
tercourse with  the  actors  and  writers  of  the 
time,  and  with  numbers  of  its  great  people. 
This  period  is  six  years  later  than  Greene's 
malevolent  allusion  to  the  "upstart  crow," 
' '  in  his  own  conceit  the  onely  Shakescene 
in  a  countrj',"  and  to  Henry  Chettle's  se- 
quent apology  for  having  published  Greene's 
rancorous  and  offensive  though  puerile  im- 
pertinence. ' '  I  am  as  sorry. ' '  says  the  pub- 
lisher of  the  Groatsit'orth  of  Wit,  "as  if  the 


200  WILL    (»       I  III.    WISP  : 

orijiiiial  fault  hart  becne  my  fault,  because 
myselfe  have  seene  his  rtemeanour  no  lesse 
civill  than  lie  exelent  in  the  qualitie  he  pro- 
fesses ;  besides  rtivers  of  worship  have  re- 
ported his  uprightnes  of  dealing,  which 
argues  his  honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace 
in  writting,  that  aprooves  his  art."  Shake- 
speare was  an  accomplished  and  esteemed 
gentleman,  an  excellent  actor,  and  a  felici- 
tous writer  (facetious  in  those  days  mean- 
ing felicitous) .  Meres,  mindful  of  rhetorical 
balance  and  careless  of  thoroughness,  nam- 
ing six  tragedies  and  six  comedies,  obviously 
intended  to  refer  to  an  even  number  of  each 
kind  of  play :  but  Shakespeare,  prior  to  the 
date  of  Falladis  Tamia,  had  not  only  written 
the  works  that  have  been  mentioned,  but 
had  written  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and 
the  first  part  of  Henry  the  Fourth.  He  was 
eminent  among  the  authors  of  his  time  — 
well  rewarded,  prosperous,  honoured,  and, 
as  may  be  surmised  by  the  reader  of  Ben 
Jonson's  Conversations  with  Drummond, 
closely  observed  in  all  his  walks  and  ways  ; 
a  man  of  publicity  and  distinction  —  and 
the  comedy  of  Lore's  Lahonr''s  Lost  had 
helped  to  make  him  so. 

In  what  degree  the  piece  had  popularity 
in  its  immediate  day  no  one  now  can  tell. 


LOVE  S    LABOUR  S    LOST.  20I 

Its  bearing  as  a  local  and  contemporary 
satire  ought  to  have  made  it  successful. 
The  public  has  always  disliked  satire  and 
satirists,  and  at  the  same  time  has  always, 
for  a  while,  followed  them  and  favoured 
them.  Its  admirably  humorous  scene  of 
the  discovery  that  all  the  dedicated  celi- 
bates are  in  love,  and  its  subsequent 
sprightly  colloquies  of  raillery  in  which 
those  wooers  are  chaffed  by  the  merry 
maidens  of  Trance,  would  have  pleased 
any  audience  at  any  time  ;  and  doubtless 
those  merits  were  appreciated  by  the  gal- 
lants of  Gloriana's  court.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, soon  to  have  vanished  from  the  stage. 
In  his  chapter  entitled  ' '  Plays  Printed  But 
Not  Acted,  Between  1660  and  1830"  Ge- 
nest  makes  the  following  note  on  a  play 
called  The  Students^  printed  in  1762: 
"  Students,  1762.  This  is  professedly 
Love''s  Labour  Lost,  adapted  to  the  stage, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  ever 
acted.  The  maker  of  the  alteration,  as  is 
usual  in  these  cases,  has  left  out  too  much 
of  Shakespeare  and  put  in  too  much  of  his 
own  stuff.  Biron  is  foolishly  made  to  put 
on  Costard's  coat  ;  in  this  disguise  he 
speaks  part  of  what  belongs  to  Costard, 
and  is  mistaken  for  him  by  several  of  the 


202  WILL    O     TIE    WISl' : 

characters.  The  curate  and  schoohnaster 
are  omitted,  but  one  of  the  pedantic 
speeches  belonging  to  the  latter  is  absurdly 
given  to  a  player.  One  thing  is  very  ha])- 
pily  altered  :  Armado's  letter  to  the  King  is 
omitted  as  a  letter,  and  the  contents  of  it 
are  thrown  into  Armado's  part.  The 
Cuckow  Song  is  transferred  from  the  end  of 
the  play  to  the  second  act,  in  which  it  is 
sung  by  Moth.  It  is  now  usually  sung  in 
As  Voji  Like  It.  Steevens,  in  a  note  on 
the  third  act  of  the  original  play,  observes 
that  in  many  of  the  old  comedies  the  songs 
are  frequently  omitted.  On  this  occasion 
the  stage  direction  is  generally.  Here  they 
sing,  or  cantant.  Probably  the  performer 
was  left  to  the  choice  of  his  own  ditty. 
Sometimes  yet  more  was  left  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  ancient  comedians.  Thus,  in 
Greene's  Tu  Quoque,  '  Here  they  two  talk 
and  rail  what  they  list.'  Steevens  gives 
other  similar  instances." 

When  Shakespeare  first  arrived  in  Lon- 
don (1585-80)  only  two  notable  public 
playhouses  were  open  in  that  city.  Those 
were  the  Theatre,  managed  by  his  towns- 
man James  Burbage,  in  Finsbury  Field, 
and  the  Curtain,  in  Shoreditch.  Both  are 
mentioned  by  Stow  (1525-1005),  and  both 


LOVES    LABOURS    LOST.  203 

certainly  existed  as  early  as  1583.  The 
Blackfriars  (erected  in  1570)  was  a  private 
theatre  ;  but  it  seems  to  have  become  a 
public  one  in  1597.  The  Globe  was  opened 
m  1599,  and  it  was  burnt  down  on  June  29, 
1613.  The  Rose  was  opened  by  Henslowe, 
in  February  1591,  "on  the  Bancksyde*' 
—  that  is,  at  South wark.  Most  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  originally  produced  at 
one  or  another  of  those  theatres.  It  is 
probable  that  the  first  performance  of 
Love''s  Labour's  Lost  occurred  at  the  Rose  ; 
though  it  may  have  been  at  the  Curtain. 

In  all  the  long  annals  of  the  British  and 
American  drama  there  is  but  scant  record 
of  any  considerable  revivals  of  this  comedy. 
It  was  performed  in  London,  at  Covent 
Garden,  in  September  1839,  when  Eliza 
Yestris  acted  Rosaline  and  the  beautiful 
Louisa  Xisbett  acted  the  Princess  of  France. 
That  earnest,  intrepid,  thorough  actor, 
Samuel  Phelps,  revived  it  at  Sadler's  AVells, 
London,  in  1857.  It  was  included  by  Charles 
Edward  Flower  in  his  tasteful  and  useful 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays  prepared  for 
representation  in  the  Memorial  theatre  at 
Stratford-upon-Avon.  It  was  presented  at 
the  Arch  Street  theatre,  Philadelphia,  in 
1858,  but  that  revival  seems  to  have  been 


204  WILL    O     THE    WISP: 

one  of  transient  value.  The  first  practically 
auspicious  reproduction  of  it  that  the  stu- 
dent comes  upon,  in  modern  theatrical 
chronicles,  is  that  made  by  Augustin  Daly, 
when  his  theatre  (then  called  the  Fifth 
Avenue)  was  in  Twenty-eighth  street,  New 
York,  on  February  21,  1874.  It  had  not 
until  then  been  acted  on  the  New  York 
stage,  and  after  that  it  slumbered  for  seven- 
teen years,  till  revived  by  the  same  man- 
ager, on  March  28,  1801,  with  Ada  Rehan 
as  the  Princess. 

The  careful  student  of  Shakespeare's 
methods  will  not  fail  to  observe  that  in 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  the  poet  has  taken 
the  same  course  that  he  pursues  in  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  and  also  that  in 
this  early  comedy  he  presages  the  form  of 
all  his  later  ones.  In  both  the  Dream  and 
the  I^ahour  the  persons  who  are  distinc- 
tively humorous  conjoin  at  last  in  giving 
an  entertainment  of  a  dramatic  character, 
in  the  presence  of  royalty  and  nobility.  In 
the  former  we  have  Pyramus  and  Thisbe ; 
in  the  4atter  the  Pageant  of  the  Nine  AVor- 
thies.  By  this  device  the  poet  effects  the 
most  ample  disclosure  of  his  eccentric  peo- 
ple —  showing  more  fully  what  they  are  by 
making  them  show  what  they  think  them- 


LOVE  S    LABOUR  S    LOST.  205 

selves  to  be.  The  humorous  part  of  Lovers 
Labours  Lost  is  the  richest  part  of  it.  The 
vein  of  quaint,  quizzical,  fantastic  drollery 
in  Shakespeare's  nature  showed  itself  early 
to  be  deep  and  rich,  and  his  wonderful  com- 
mand of  humorous  phraseology  was  also 
brilliantly  shown  in  that  piece.  The  in- 
tensely English  character  of  the  man, 
together  with  his  complete  carelessness  of 
accurate  and  formal  scholarship  —  a  quali- 
fication which  he  did  not  possess,  and 
which  he  would  not  have  regarded  even  if 
he  had  possessed  it  —  are  also  visible  in  the 
humorous  part  of  Love's  Labour's  Lost. 
Every  point,  howsoever  slight,  has  to  be 
considered  in  the  study  of  an  author  about 
whose  personality  our  chief  information 
has  necessarily  to  be  derived  from  the 
analysis  of  his  mind.  The  fact  that  into 
Love''s  Labour's  Lost.,  although  the  scene  is 
laid  in  Xavarre,  the  poet  introduced  such 
names  and  persons  as  Costard,  Dull,  and 
Moth  is,  therefore,  not  devoid  of  signifi- 
cance. In  arranging  £  ore's  Labour's  Lost 
for  the  stage  the  editor  condensed  it, 
and  blended  the  third  act,  which  in  the 
original  is  very  short,  with  the  essential 
portions  of  the  fourth.  Allusion  to  the 
death  of  the  French  king  was  also  omitted, 


206  WILL   O'   THK   wisr. 

and  the  imposition  of  a  penance  of  one  year 
of  waiting  was,  presumably,  ascribed  to  a 
sense,  on  the  part  of  the  Princess,  that  it  is 
expedient  and  will  prove  salutary.  The 
pageant  was  transposed  to  the  end  of  the 
comedy,  which  closed  with  one  of  the  sweet- 
est of  the  Shakespeare  melodies  and  left 
its  spectator  with  a  mental  vision  of  all 
the  lovely  flowers  that  grow  on  Avon's 
banks. 


SHAKESPEAKE  S    ISIIKEW  20/ 


XIV. 

shakespeark's  shrew. 

A  PLAY  entitled  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew 
was  published  in  London  in  1594.  It 
had  been  for  some  time  extant  and  had 
been  "  sundry  times  "  acted  by  the  players 
who  were  in  the  service  of  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke. The  authorship  of  it  is  unknown  ; 
but  Charles  Knight  ascribes  it  to  Robert 
Greene  (1561-1592) — that  dissolute  ge- 
nius, who  is  now  chiefly  remembered  as  the 
detractor  of  Shakespeare  and  as  the  first 
English  poet  that  ever  wrote  for  bread. 
The  German  commentator  Tieck  supposes 
it  to  be  a  juvenile  production  by  Shake- 
speare himself  ;  but  this  is  a  dubious  the- 
ory. It  is  certain,  however,  that  Shake- 
speare was  acquainted  with  that  piece,  and 
it  is  believed  that  in  writing  The  Teaming  of 
the  Shrew  he  either  co-laboured  with  an- 
other dramatist  to  make  a  new  version  of 
the  older  play,  or  else  that  he  augmented 
and  embellished  a  new  version  of  it  which 


2o8  SIIAKKSrEARE's    SIIKKNV. 

liad  already  been  made  by  another  hand. 
In  1594  he  was  thirty  years  old,  and  he 
had  been  about  eight  years  in  London  the- 
atrical life.  Edward  Dowden  thinks  that 
Shakespeare's  portion  of  this  task  was 
performed  in  1597.  The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew  was  acted,  by  his  associates,  at 
the  Blackfriars  theatre,  at  the  theatre  at 
Newington  Butts  —  which  the  Shakespeare 
players  occupied  while  the  Globe  theatre 
was  being  built  —  and  finally  at  the  Globe 
itself.  He  never  claimed  it,  however,  as 
one  of  his  works,  and  it  was  liot  published 
until  after  his  death.  It  first  appeared  in 
the  folio  of  1623. 

Keightley  describes  The  Taming  of  the 
Shi^ew  as  "  a  rifacimento  of  an  anonymous 
play,"  and  expresses  the  opinion  that  its 
style  "proves  it  to  belong  to  Shakespeare's 
early  period."  Collier  maintains  that 
"  Shakespeare  had  little  to  do  with  any 
of  the  scenes  in  which  Katherine  and  Pe- 
truchio  are  not  engaged."  Dr.  Johnson, 
comparing  the  Shakespearean  play  with  its 
predecessor,  remarks  that  "  the  (juarrel  in 
the  choice  of  dresses  is  precisely  the  same ; 
many  of  the  ideas  are  preserved  without 
alteration  ;  the  faults  found  with  the  cap, 
the  gown,  the  compassed  cape,  the  trunk 


shakej?i'eake  s  siikew.  209 

sleeves,  and  the  balderdash  about  taking  up 
the  goicn,  have  been  copied,  as  well  as  the 
scene  in  which  Petruchio  makes  Katherine 
call  the  siin  the  moon.  The  joke  of  address- 
ing an  elderly  gentleman  as  a  '  young,  bud- 
ding virgin,  fair  and  fresh  and  sweet,' 
belongs  also  to  the  old  drama ;  but  in  this 
instance  it  is  remarkable  that,  while  the 
leading  idea  is  adopted,  the  mode  of  ex- 
pressing it  is  quite  different." 

Kichard  Grant  White  says :  ''  The  plot,  the 
personages,  and  the  scheme  of  the  Induction 
are  taken  from  the  old  play,  which,  how- 
ever, is  as  dull  as  this  is  in  most  points 
spirited  and  interesting.  In  (this  play) 
three  hands  at  least  are  traceable  ;  that  of 
the  author  of  the  old  play,  that  of  Shake- 
speare himself,  and  that  of  a  co-labourer. 
The  first  appears  in  the  structure  of  the 
plot  and  in  the  incidents  and  the  dialogue 
of  most  of  the  minor  scenes;  to  the  last 
must  be  assigned  the  greater  part  of  the 
love  business  between  Bianca  and  her  two 
suitors  ;  while  to  Shakespeare  himself  be- 
long the  strong,  clear  characterisation, 
the  delicious  humour,  and  the  rich  verbal 
colouring  of  the  recast  Induction,  and  all 
the  scenes  in  which  Katherine,  Petruchio, 
and  Grumio  are  prominent  figures,  together 
o 


2  10  SHAKESPKAKE  S    SIIKEW. 

with  the  general  effect  produced  by  scat- 
tering lines  and  words  and  phrases  here 
and  there,  and  removing  others  elsewhere, 
throughout  the  play." 

It  is  evident  from  these  testimonies  that, 
whether  Shakespeare  recast  and  rewrote 
liis  own  work,  —  as  Tieck  supposes,  and  as 
he  seems  to  have  done  in  the  case  of  Ham- 
let^ —  or  whether  he  furbished  up  the  work 
of  somebody  else,  the  comedy  of  The  Tam- 
ing of  the  Shrew  that  stands  in  his  name 
is  largely  indebted,  for  structure,  to  its 
predecessor  on  the  same  subject.  Both 
plays  owe  their  plot  to  an  ancient  source. 
The  scheme  of  the  Induction  —  a  feature 
common  to  both  —  is  found  as  an  old  his- 
toric fact  in  The  Arabian  Nights,  in  the 
tale  of  The  Sleeper  Avmkened.  Shakespeare 
did  not  know  that  work  ;  but  this  tale  of  im- 
posture—  said  to  have  been  practised  upon 
Abu-1-Hassan,  "the  wag,"  by  the  Kha- 
leefeh  Er-Rasheed  —  originating  in  remote 
oriental  literature,  and  repeated  in  various 
forms,  may  have  been  current  long  before 
his  time.  In  that  narrative  Abu-1-Hassan 
is  deluded  into  the  idea  that  he  is  the  Prince 
of  the  Faithful,  and,  as  that  potentate,  he 
commands  that  nuich  gold  shall  be  sent  to 
Hassan's    mother,    and    that    punishment 


SHAKESPEARKS    SHREW.  211 

shall  be  inflicted  upon  certain  persons  by 
whom  Hassan  has  been  persecuted. 

A  variation  of  this  theme  occurs  in  Gou- 
lart's  Admirable  and  Memorable  Histories^ 
translated  into  English  by  E.  Grimestone, 
in  1607.  In  this  it  is  related  that  Philip, 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  called  the  Good,  found 
a  drunken  man  asleep  in  the  street,  at  Brus- 
sels, caused  him  to  be  conveyed  to  the 
palace,  bathed  and  dressed,  entertained  by 
the  performance  of  "a  pleasant  comedy," 
and  at  last  once  more  stupefied  with  wine, 
arrayed  in  ragged  garments,  and  deposited 
where  he  had  been  discovered,  there  to 
awake,  and  to  believe  himself  the  sport  of 
a  dream.  Malone,  by  whom  the  narrative 
was  quoted  from  Goulart,  thinks  that  it  had 
appeared  in  English  prior  to  the  old  play  of 
The  Taming  of  a  Shrei'j',  and  consequently 
was  known  to  Shakespeare. 

Another  source  of  his  material  is  Ariosto. 
In  1587  were  published  the  collected  works 
of  George  Gascoigne.  Among  them  is  a 
prose  comedy  called  T7ie  Supposes  —  a 
translation  of  Ariosto' s  I SupposiU.,  in  which 
occur  the  names  of  Petrucio  and  Licio,  and 
from  which,  doubtless,  Shakespeare  bor- 
rowed the  amusing  incident  of  the  Pedant 
personating  Vincentio.     Gascoigne,  it  will 


212  SIlAKESriiAHE  8    SIIUEW. 

be  reiiieiubered,  is  the  old  poet  to  whom  Sir 
AValter  Scott  was  indebted,  when  he  wrote 
his  magnilicent  novel  of  Kenilworth  —  so 
superb  in  pageantry,  so  strong  and  various 
in  character,  so  deep  and  rich  in  passion, 
and  so  fluent  in  style  and  narrative  power 

—  for  description  of  the  revels  with  which 
Leicester  entertained  Queen  Elizabeth  in 
1575. 

In  versification  the  acknowledged  Shake- 
spearean comedy  is  much  superior  to  the 
older  piece.  The  Induction  contains  pas- 
sages of  felicitous  fluency,  phrases  of  delight- 
ful aptness,  that  crystalline  lucidity  of  style 
which  is  characteristic  of  Shakespeare,  and 
a  rich  vein  of  humour.  Those  speeches 
uttered  by  the  Lord  have  the  unmistakable 
Shakespearean  ring.  The  character  of 
Christopher  Sly  likewise  is  conceived  and 
drawn  in  precisely  the  vein  of  Shake- 
speare's usual  English  peasants,  Hazlitt 
justly  likens  him  to  Sancho  Panza.  The 
Warwickshire  allusions  are  also  significant 

—  though  Greene  as  well  as  Shakespeare 
was  a  Warwickshire  man  ;  but  some  of  the 
references  are  peculiar  to  the  second  comedy, 
and  they  inevitably  suggest  the  same  hand 
that  wrote  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 
"Burton   Heath"   may  be  Barton-on-the- 


SHAKESPEARE  S    SHREW.  213 

Heath,  a  village  situated  about  two  miles 
from  Long  Compton.  Knight,  citing  Dug- 
dale,  points  out  that  in  Doomsday-Book  the 
name  of  this  village  is  written  "Bertone." 
Shakespeare's  own  beautiful  native  shire  — 
as  his  works  abundantly  show  —  was  con- 
stantly in  his  mind  when  he  wrote.  It  is 
from  the  region  round  about  Stratford-upon- 
Avon  that  he  habitually  derives  his  climate, 
his  foliage,  his  flowers,  his  sylvan  atmos- 
phere, and  his  romantic  and  always  ef- 
fective correspondence  between  nature's 
environment  and  the  characters  and  deeds 
of  humanity.  Only  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
"Wilkie  Collins,  and  Thomas  Hardy,  since 
his  time,  have  conspicuously  rivalled  him  in 
this  latter  felicity  ;  and  only  George  Eliot 
and  Thomas  Hardy  have  drawn  such  Eng- 
lish peasants  as  his.  "Ask  Marion  Hacket, 
the  fat  ale-wife  of  Wincot,"  is  another  of 
the  Warwickshire  allusions  ;  Wincot  may 
mean  Wilmcote  —  which  Malone  says  was 
called  Wyncote  —  where  lived  Mary  Arden , 
the  mother  of  Shakespeare,  in  that  venera- 
ble, weather-beaten  structure,  in  the  parish 
of  Aston  Cantlow,  about  four  miles  north- 
west of  Stratford.  And  there  is  a  Wincot 
near  the  village  of  Clifford,  a  few  miles  to 
the  south. 


214  SHAKESPEARF/S    SHREW. 

The  version  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
which  for  many  years  has  been  used  on  the 
stage,  in  one  form  or  another,  is  the  version, 
in  three  acts,  that  was  made  by  Garrick, 
produced  at  Drury  Lane,  and  pubHshed  in 
1756,  under  the  name  of  Katherine  and  Pe- 
trnchlo.  That  version  omits  several  scenes 
and  transposes  other  parts  of  the  original. 
An  alteration  of  Garrick's  piece,  made  and 
long  used  by  Edwin  Booth,  was  published 
in  1878,  with  a  preface  and  notes  by  the 
presen*;  writer.  Booth's  version  is  in  two 
acts,  and  it  has  been  adopted  by  several 
other  actors.  Neither  the  Garrick  nor  the 
Booth  book  includes  The  Induction  or  the 
under-plot  relative  to  the  love  of  Hortensio 
and  Bianca.  From  the  beginning  of  Amer- 
ican stage  history  until  the  time  of  Augustin 
Daly's  revival  of  it,  January  18,  1887,  with 
Ada  Behan  in  her  superb  and  matchless 
embodiment  of  Katherine,  The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew  had  never  been  presented 
here  as  Shakespeare  wrote  it.  That  ex- 
quisite actress  Marie  Seebach,  when  she 
visited  America  in  1870,  produced  it,  in  the 
German  language,  imder  the  name  of  Die 
Widerspenstige,  in  a  four-act  version,  cut 
and  changed  ;  but  that  did  not  include  the 
Induction. 


SHAKESPEARE  S    SHREW.  215 

On  the  English  stage  this  comedy  has 
been  the  parent  of  several  popular  plays. 
Aside  from  its  rattling  fun  the  subject 
itself  seems  to  possess  a  particular  in- 
terest for  those  Britons  whose  chief  article 
of  faith  is  the  subordination  of  woman 
to  man.  Long  ago  it  became  a  settled 
principle  of  the  common  law  of  England 
that  a  man  may  beat  his  wife  with  a  stick 
not  thicker  than  his  thumb.  The  duck- 
ing stool  —  a  chair  affijced  to  the  end  of  a 
beam,  which  rested  on  a  pivot,  and  so 
arranged  that  the  culprit,  bound  into  it, 
could  be  repeatedly  soused  in  a  pond  or 
river  —  was  used  in  England,  to  punish 
a  scolding  woman,  as  late  as  1809,  John 
Taylor,  the  water-poet,  counted  sixty  whip- 
ping-posts within  one  mile  of  London,  prior 
to  1630,  and  it  was  not  till  1791  that  the 
whipping  of  female  vagrants  was  forbidden 
by  statute.  The  brank,  a  peculiar  and 
cruel  kind  of  gag,  formerly  in  common  use, 
has  been  employed  to  punish  a  certain  sort 
of  women  within  the  memory  of  persons 
still  alive.  Thackeray's  caustic  ballad  of 
Damages  Tv-o  Hundred  Pounds  affords  an 
instructive  glimpse  of  the  view  that  has 
been  taken,  by  British  law,  of  masculine 
severity  toward  women.     It  is  not  meant 


2l6  SIIAKKSI'F.AI!r.*S    SMKKW. 

that  the  gentlemen  of  England  are  tyranni- 
cal and  cruel  in  their  treatment  of  the 
women  ;  far  from  it ;  but  that  the  predomi- 
nance of  John  Bull,  in  any  question  between 
himself  and  Mrs.  Bull,  is  a  cardinal  doctrine 
of  the  English  law,  and  that  plays  illustra- 
tive of  the  application  of  discipline  to 
rebellious  women  have  found  favour  with 
the  English  audience. 

Saicney  tlie  Scot,  by  John  Lacy,  acted  at 
Drury  Lane  and  published  in  1608,  is  an 
alteration  of  The  Tamimi  of  the  Shrew  and 
is  not  so  good  a  play  ;  yet  it  had  success. 
Another  play  derived  from  this  original  is 
The  Cobbler  of  Preston,  by  Charles  Johnson, 
a  two-act  farce,  acted  at  Drury  Lane  and 
published  in  1710.  A  piece,  by  Christopher 
Bullock,  having  the  same  title,  was  acted 
at  the  same  time  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields. 
Both  seem  to  have  been  well  received. 
John  Fletcher's  Ride  a  Wife  and  have  a 
Wife  (1640)  is  perhaps  the  most  notable 
type  of  the  popular  plays  of  this  class.  In 
that  piece  Leon  pretends  meekness  and 
docility,  in  order  to  win  Margarita,  and 
presently  becomes  imperative  for  the  con- 
trol of  her,  Garrick  used  to  personate 
Leon,  in  an  alteration  of  the  comedy  attrib- 
uted to  his  own   hand.       It  is   worth v   of 


SHAKESPEARE  S    SHREW.  21/ 

note  that  Fletcher,  whose  views  of  women 
are  somewhat  stern  and  severe  (he  was  the 
son  of  that  Fletcher,  Dean  of  Peterborough, 
who  troubled  the  last  moments  of  Mary 
Stuart  by  his  importunate  religious  exhor- 
tations to  her  upon  the  scaffold  at  Fotherin- 
gay  Castle),  nevertheless  wrote  a  sequel  to 
Tlie  Taming  of  the  Shrev:,  in  which  Petru- 
chio  reappears,  Katherine  being  dead,  with 
a  new  wife,  by  whom  he  is  henpecked  and 
subdued.  This  is  entitled  Tlie  Woman's 
Prize,  or  the  Tamer  Tamed,  and  it  was 
printed  in  1647.  John  Tobin's  comedy  of 
The  Honeymoon  (1805),  based  on  ideas 
derived  from  Shakespeare,  Fletcher,  and 
Shirley,  portrays  a  husband's  conquest  of 
his  wife's  affections  by  personal  charm, 
irradiating  manliness  and  firmness  of  char- 
acter ;  and  this  piece  is  deservedly  held  in 
esteem.  Petruchio's  method  is  to  meet 
turbulence  with  still  greater  turbulence, 
remaining,  however,  entirely  good-natured 
throughout  the  stormiest  paroxysms  of 
violence,  till  at  last  his  boi-sterous,  kindly, 
rough,  sinewy  \igour  and  clamorous  tu- 
mult overwhelm  Katherine  and  disgust  her 
with  the  exaggerated  image  of  her  own 
faults. 

The  scene  of  the  Induction  is  obviously 


2  15  SIIAKP'.SPEARE  S    SIIHF.W. 

Warwickshire ;  that  of  the  main  action 
of  tlie  comedy  at  Padua,  and  at  the  coun- 
try-house of  Petruchio  —  wlio  comes  to 
Padua  from  Verona.  The  period  hidicated 
is  tlie  sixteentli  century,  about  the  year 
1585.  Tlie  time  supposed  to  be  occupied 
by  the  action  is  four  days.  The  name  of 
Shakespeare's  slirew  is  Katharina  MiuoUi. 
The  Induction  presents  the  only  oppor- 
tunity that  Shakespeare's  works  afford  for 
showing  English  costume  of  his  own  time. 
The  Italian  dresses  required  for  the  piece 
are  of  styles  such  as  were  contemporaneous 
with  the  poet.  An  actor  named  Sincklo, 
who  is  mentioned  in  the  quarto  edition  of 
Henry  IV.,  Part  Second,  and  also  in  Henry 
VI.,  Part  Third,  is  supposed  to  have  acted 
in  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  as  well  as  in 
those  two  histories  —  for  the  reason  that  a 
reference  to  him  occurs  in  the  old  play. 
The  line  "I  think  'twas  Soto  that  your 
honour  means "  was  originally  given  to 
Sincklo.  It  has  long  been  customary,  in 
acting  this  piece,  to  present  Curtis,  a 
serving-man  in  the  original,  as  an  old 
woman  ;  and  to  allot  two  or  three  words  of 
speech  to  the  servants  who  are  named  by 
Grumio,  in  his  deprecatory  appeal  to  his 
master,  in  the  arrival  scene. 


ANTONY    AND    CLEOPATRA.  2I9 


XV. 

A    MAD    world:    ANTOXY    AXD    CLEOPATRA. 

WHATEVER  else  may  be  said  as  to  the 
drift  of  the  tragedy  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  this  certainly  may  with  truth  be 
said,  that  to  strong  natures  that  sicken 
under  the  weight  of  convention  and  are 
weary  with  looking  upon  the  littleness  of 
human  nature  in  its  ordinary  forms,  it  af- 
fords a  great  and  splendid,  howsoever  tem- 
porary, relief  and  refreshment.  The  winds 
of  power  blow  through  it ;  the  strong 
meridian  sunsliine  blazes  over  it ;  the  col- 
ours of  morning  burn  around  it  ;  the  trum- 
pet blares  in  its  music  ;  and  its  fragrance 
is  the  scent  of  a  wilderness  of  roses. 
Shakespeare's  vast  imagination  was  here 
loosed  upon  colossal  images  and  imperial 
splendours.  The  passions  that  clash  or 
mingle  in  this  piece  are  like  the  ocean 
surges  —  fierce,  glittering,  terrible,  glorious. 
The  theme  is  the  ruin  of  a  demigod.  The 
adjuncts   are   empires.      Wealth  of  every 


220  A    MAI)    WOULD  : 

sort  is  poured  forth  with  regal  and  limitless 
profusion.  The  language  glows  with  a 
prodigal  emotion  and  towers  to  a  superb 
height  of  eloquence.  It  does  not  signify, 
as  modifying  the  effect  of  all  this  tumult 
and  glory,  that  the  stern  truth  of  mortal 
evanescence  is  suggested  all  the  way  and 
simply  disclosed  at  last  in  a  tragical  wreck 
of  honour,  love,  and  life.  While  the  pag- 
eant endures  it  endures  in  diamond  light, 
and  when  it  fades  and  crumbles  the  change 
is  instantaneous  to  darkness  and  death. 

"  The  odds  is  gone, 
And  there  is  nothing  left  remarkable 
Beneath  the  visiting  moon." 

There  is  no  need  to  inquire  whether 
Shakespeare  —  who  closely  followed  Plu- 
tarch, in  telling  the  Roman  and  Egyptian 
story  —  has  been  true  to  the  historical 
fact.  His  characters  declare  themselves 
with  absolute  precision  and  they  are  not  to 
be  mistaken.  Antony  and  Cleopatra  are 
in  middle  life,  and  the  only  possible  or  ad- 
missible ideal  of  them  is  that  which  sepa- 
rates them  at  once  and  forever  from  the 
gentle,  puny,  experimental  emotions  of 
youth,  and  invests  them  with  the  devel- 
oped powers  and  fearless  and  exultant  pas- 


ANTONY   AND    CLEOrATKA.  221 

sions  of  men  aud  women  to  whom  the 
world  and  life  are  a  fact  and  not  a  dream. 
They  do  not  palter.  For  them  there  is 
but  one  hour,  which  is  the  present,  and  one 
life,  which  they  will  entirely  and  absolutely 
fulfil.  They  have  passed  out  of  the  mere 
instinctive  life  of  the  senses,  into  that  more 
intense  and  thrilling  life  wherein  the  senses 
are  fed  and  governed  by  the  imagination. 
Shakespeare  has  filled  this  wonderful  play 
vnth  lines  that  tell  unerringly  his  grand 
meaning  in  this  respect  —  lines  that,  to 
Shakespearean  scholars,  are  in  the  alphabet 
of  memory :  — 

"  There's  beggary  in  the  love  that  can  be  reck- 
oned." 


There's   not  a  minute  of  our  lives  should 

stretch 
Without  some  pleasure  now." 

'  Let  Rome  in  Tiber  melt  and  the  wide  arch 
Of  the    ranged  empire   fall!      Here  is  my 
space! " 

'  O,  thou  day  of  the  world, 
Chain  mine  armed  neck!    Leap  thou,  attire 
and  all, 


A    MAD    WORLD 


Through  proof  of  harness,  to  my  heart  and 

there 
Ride  on  the  pants  triumphant." 


"  Fall  not  a  tear,  I  say!  one  of  them  rates 
All  that  is  won  and  lost.    Give  me  a  kiss ; 
Even  this  repays  me." 

Here  is  no  Orsino,  sighing  for  the  music 
that  is  the  food  of  love  ;  no  Eomeo,  taking 
the  measure  of  an  unmade  gi'ave  ;  no  Ham- 
let lover,  bidding  his  mistress  go  to  a  nun- 
nery. You  may  indeed,  if  you  possess  the 
subtle,  poetic  sense,  hear,  through  this 
voluptuous  story,  the  faint,  far-off  rustle  of 
the  garments  of  the  coming  Nemesis  ;  the 
low  moan  of  the  funeral  music  that  will 
sing  those  imperial  lovers  to  their  rest  — 
for  nothing  is  more  inevitably  doomed  than 
mortal  delight  in  mortal  love,  and  no  mor- 
alist ever  taught  his  lesson  of  truth  with 
more  inexorable  purpose  than  Shakespeare 
uses  here.  But  in  the  meantime  it  is  the 
present  vitality  and  not  the  moral  implica- 
tion of  the  subject  that  actors  must  be  con- 
cerned to  show,  and  observers  to  recognise 
and  comprehend,  upon  the  stage,  if  this 
tragedy  is  to  be  rightly  acted  and  rightly 
seen.     Antony  and  Cleopatra  are  lovers, 


ANTONY   AND    CLEOPATRA .  223 

but  not  lovers  only.  It  is  the  splendid 
stature  and  infinite  variety  of  character  in 
them  that  render  them  puissant  in  fascina- 
tion. Each  of  them  speaks  great  thoughts 
in  great  language.  Each  displays  noble 
imagination.  Each  becomes  majestic  in 
the  hour  of  danger  and  pathetically  heroic 
in  the  hour  of  death.  The  dying  speeches 
of  Antony  are  in  the  highest  vein  that 
Shakespeare  ever  reached  ;  and,  Tvhen  you 
consider  what  is  implied  as  well  as  what  is 
said,  there  is  nowhere  in  him  a  more  lofty 
line  than  Cleopatra's 

"  Give  me  my  robe,  put  on  my  crown  ;  I  have 
Immortal  longings  in  me  !  " 

Antony  at  the  last  is  a  ruin,  and  like  a 
ruin  —  dark,  weird,  grim,  lonely,  haggard 
—  he  seems  to  stand  beneath  a  cold  and 
lurid  sunset  sky,  wherein  the  black  clouds 
gather,  while  the  rising  wind  blows  merci- 
less and  terrible  over  an  intervening  waste 
of  rock  and  desert.  Those  images  indicate 
the  spirit  and  atmosphere  of  Shakespeare's 
conception. 


224  SllEKIDAN    AND    THE 


XVI. 
SHERIDAN    AND    THE    SCHOOL   TOR    SCANDAL. 

ALTHOUGH  genius  is  elemental,  and 
therefore  is  not  created  by  circum- 
stances, it  is  certain  that  circumstances 
exert  an  important  influence  upon  its  drift 
and  upon  the  channels  and  methods  of  its 
expression.  Sheridan  —  whose  father  was 
an  actor  and  whose  mother  was  a  drama- 
tist, and  who  was  born  at  Dublin  in  1751, 
and  trained  at  Harrow  School  from  1762 
till  1769,  when  he  went  to  reside  with  his 
father  at  Bath  —  came  upon  the  scene 
at  a  period  when  English  society  was  in 
an  exceedingly  artificial  condition  ;  and 
this  prevalent  artificiality  of  manners,  as 
experience  subsequently  proved,  was  des- 
tined to  increase  and  to  prevail  during  the 
whole  of  his  career  (he  died  in  1816),  and 
not  to  decline  until  after  the  death  of 
George  IV.  in  1830.  AVhen  Sheridan  went 
to  reside  at  Bath  he  was  in  his  nineteenth 
year  ;  a  remarkably  handsome  youth  ;  ar- 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  225 

dent  and  impressible  ;  and  Bath  was  then 
one  of  the  gayest  cities  in  the  British  king- 
dom. In  that  brilliant  city  and  in  that 
opnlent,  insincere,  tattling,  backbiting  so- 
ciety —  intermittently,  but  most  of  the  time 
—  he  lived  during  the  perilous  years  of  his 
youth,  from  1770  to  1776  ;  there  he  loved 
and  won  for  a  wife  the  beautiful  Eliza 
Linley  —  eloping  with  her  to  France,  and 
fighting  duels  in  her  defence  when  he  came 
back  ;  there  he  wrote  The  Bivals  and  The 
Duenna^  and  there  he  planned  and  partly 
executed  the  School  for  Scandal.  Into 
The  Rivals  he  wrought  much  of  his  per- 
sonal experience,  duly  and  artistically 
modified  and  veiled.  Into  the  School  for 
Scandal  he  wrought  the  results  of  his 
observation — working  in  a  manner  essen- 
tially natural  to  his  order  of  mind,  yet  one 
that  was  to  some  extent  guided  and  im- 
pelled by  the  study  of  Etherege,  Wycher- 
lej^,  Farquhar,  Vanbrugh,  and  Congreve, 
who  are  his  intellectual  ancestors.  There 
is  more  freedom,  more  freshness  of  im- 
pulse, more  kindness,  more  joy,  more 
nature  in  The  Hirals  than  there  is  in  the 
School  for  Scandal ;  but  both  are  artificial ; 
both  reflect,  in  a  mirror  of  artistic  exagger- 
ation, the   hollow,   feverish,   ceremonious, 

V 


226  SHERIDAN    AM)    THE 

bespangled,  glittering,  heart-breaking  fash- 
ionable world,  in  which  their  author's  mind 
was  developed  and  in  which  they  were 
created.  The  School  for  Scandal,  indeed, 
is  completely  saturated  with  artificiality, 
and  the  fact  that  it  was  intended  to  satirise 
and  rebuke  the  faults  of  an  insincere,  scan- 
dal-mongering  society  does  not  —  and  was 
not  meant  to  —  modify  that  pervasive  and 
predominant  element  of  its  character. 

Satire,  in  order  to  be  effective,  must 
portray  the  thing  that  it  excoriates.  The 
School  for  Scandal  rebukes  a  vice  by  de- 
picting it,  and  makes  the  rebuke  pungent 
by  depicting  it  in  a  brilliant  and  entertain- 
ing way  ;  yet  there  is  no  considerable  com- 
edy in  our  language,  not  even  one  by 
Etherege  or  by  Congreve  i  —  authors  whose 

1  The  student  of  the  comedies  of  Sheridan  is 
aided  in  his  appreciation  of  their  quality,  their 
spirit,  their  peculiar  excellence,  by  a  preliminary 
stiiily  of  JItherege,  "SVychcrley,  Farquhar,  Vanbrugh, 
and  Couirreve.  The  intellectual  line  represented  by 
those  writers  closed  with  Sheridan.  No  successor 
has  arisen,  although  of  imitators  there  have  been 
scores.  Sir  George  Etherege  (1636?-16S9)  wrote 
The  Comical  Revenge  (1064),  She  Would  if  She 
Could  (1668),  and  The  Man  of  Mode,  or  Sir  Fop- 
ling  Flutter  (1676).  William  Wycherley  (1640- 
1715)  wrote,  between  1672  and  1677,  Love  in  a  Wood, 
The    Gentleman   Dancing-Master,   The    Country 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCAXDAL.  22/ 

influence  was  naturally  and  cogently  oiDei- 
ative  upon  the  kindred  mind  of  Sheridan  — 
that  stands  further  off  from  the  simplicity 
of  nature,  moves  in  a  more  garish  light,  or 
requires  for  its  intelligible  and  effective 
interpretation  a  more  studied,  manufac- 
tured, fantastic  manner.  It  contains  no 
person  upon  whom  the  imagination  can  dwell 
with  delight,  or  to  whom  the  heart  can  be- 
come devoted  ;  no  person  who  either  fires  the 
mind  by  example,  or  arouses  the  imagina- 
tion   by    romantic   nobility,   or   especially 

Wife,  and  Tlie  Plain-Dealer.  Jloore  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  Sheridau  was  unfamiliar  with  the 
last  of  these  pieces;  it  is  extremely  probable  that  he 
had  a  cursory  knowledge  of  them  all.  George  Far- 
quhar  (1678-1707)  wrote  Lave  and  a  Bottle  (1699), 
The  Constant  Couple  (1700),  Sir  Harrij  Wildair 
(1701),  The  Inconstant  (1702),  The  Twin  Rivals 
(1703),  The  Stage  Coach  (1705),  in  which  he  was 
assisted  by  Peter  A.  Motteux  (1660-1718),  The  Re- 
cruiting Officer  (1705),  and  The  Beaux  Stratagem 
(1707).  Sheridan  had  the  same  Irish  grace  that  is 
found  in  Farquhar,  but  he  more  closely  resembles 
Congreve  in  terseness  and  glitter.  Sir  John  Van- 
brugh  (1666P-1726)  wrote  The  Relapse  (1697),  The 
Provoked  Wife  (1697),  ^Esop  (1697),  The  Pilgrim 
(1700),  The  False  Friend  (1702),  Tlie  Confederacy 
(1705),  The  Mistake  (1706),  The  Cuckold  in  Conceit 
(1706),  The  Country  House  (1715),  and  ^  Jaurney 
to  London  (1728).  Squire  Tretooby  (1734)  is  also  at- 
tributed to  him.  Vanbrugh  wrote  with  more  appar- 
ent facility  than  either  of  the  others  in  this  group, 


228  SIIEHIDAN    AM)    THE 

wins  esteem  whether  for  worth  of  character 
or  excellence  of  conduct.  Once  or  twice 
indeed  —  as  in  Charles's  impulsive  expres- 
sion of  grateful  sentiment  toward  the  boun- 
teous uncle  whom  he  supposes  to  be  absent 
from  the  scene  of  the  auction,  and  in  8ir 
Peter  Teazle's  disclosure  to  Joseph  of  his 
considerate  intentions  toward  his  volatile 
wife,  in  the  scene  of  the  screen  —  it  imparts 
a  transient  thrill  of  feeling.  But  it  never 
strikes  —  and,  indeed,  it  never  aims  to 
strike  —  the   note    of    pathos,    in   its  por- 

and  his  language  is  more  flexible,  more  like  the  lan- 
guage of  actual  men  and  women,  than  that  of  the 
rest.  William  Congreve  (1670-1729)  wrote  The  Old 
Bachelor  (1693),  The  Doiible-Dealer  (1694),  Love 
for  Love  (1695),  The  Mourning  Bride  (1697),  The 
Way  of  the  World  (1700),  The  Judy  ment  of  Paris, 
a  Masque  (1701),  and  Semele  (1707).  Moore  notes 
the  significant  fact  that  the  best  comedies  have 
generally  been  written  by  young  authors.  All  of 
Congreve's  pieces  were  written  before  he  was 
twenty-five.  Farquhar  died  at  thirty.  Vanbrugh 
began  early.  Sheridan  at  twenty-seven  had  written 
The  School  for  Scandal,  and  he  never  surpassed  it; 
indeed,  practically,  he  wrote  no  more  for  the  stage 
—  for  Pizarro  and  The  Stranger  (which  substan- 
tially are  his)  are  scarcely  worth  remembrance. 
But  the  reason  why  good  comedies  may  be  written 
by  clever  young  men  is  not  obscure.  Comedy  must 
necessarily  treat  of  society  and  manners,  and  this 
subject,  which  ceases  to  be  interesting  as  men  grow 
old,  is  for  youth  a  delightful  inspiration. 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL ,  229 

traiture  of  human  life  ;  so  that,  in  the  main, 
it  contains  scarcely  a  single  trait  of  simple 
humanity.  And  yet  its  fascination  is  uni- 
versal, indomitable,  irresistible,  final  —  the 
fascmation  of  buoyant,  intellectual  char- 
acter, invincible  mirth,  pungent  satire, 
and  a  gorgeous  affluence  of  polished  wit. 
It  succeeded  when  it  was  first  produced, 
and  now,  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred 
years  and  more,  it  still  continues  to  please, 
equally  when  it  is  acted  and  when  it  is 
read.  There  is  a  moral  in  this  which 
ought  to  carry  comfort  to  those  votaries  of 
art  who  believe  in  symbol  rather  than  in 
fact,  the  ideal  rather  than  the  literal  ;  who 
know  that  a  dramatic  picture  of  life,  in 
order  that  it  may  be  made  imiversal  in  its 
applicability  and  incessant  in  its  influence, 
must  be  made  to  present  aggregate  and 
comprehensive  personifications  and  not  local 
and  particular  portraits,  and  must  be  painted 
in  colours  that  are  not  simply  true  but  deli- 
cately exaggerated.  This  is  the  great  art 
—  the  art  which  has  made  Shakespeare  to 
survive  when  Ben  Jonson  is  dead.  The 
absence  of  genial  emotion  —  of  the  glow  of 
expansive  humanity  and  of  pathos  —  in  the 
School  for  Scandal  is,  perhaps,  to  be 
regretted :  but  in  this  case  a  deficiencv  of 


230  SHKHIDAN    AM)    TlIK 

the  meltiiiu  heart  is  eouiiterl)alance(l  by  a 
prodigality  of  the  opulent  mind.  The 
piece  transcends  locality  and  ei)Och.  The 
resident  not  only  of  Bath  and  t)f  London, 
but  of  New  York  and  San  Francisco,  the 
denizen  not  only  of  great  capitals  but  of 
provincial  villages,  the  inhabitant  of  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  to-morrow,  can  perceive 
the  meaning,  feel  the  power,  and  rejoice  in 
the  sparkling  gayety  of  the  School  for 
Scandal. 

This  great  comedy  —  produced  when  its 
author  was  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  — 
was  written  slowly,  painfully,  and  with 
patient  labour.  Moore  devotes  about  thirty 
pages  of  his  Life  of  Sheridan  to  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  two  distinct  sketches  that  the 
dramatist  first  made,  when  rearing  the 
fabric  of  the  piece,  and  dilates  with  particu- 
lar admiration  upon  the  scrupulous  study, 
the  fastidious  care,  and  the  anxious  severity 
of  revision  with  which  he  selected  his  lan- 
guage, moulded  his  materials,  and  blended 
and  fused  the  many  scattered  threads  of 
his  fancy  and  inventive  thought  into  one 
symmetrical  fabric  of  crystal  wit.  "  Noth- 
ing gi'eat  and  durable,"  exclaims  the  de- 
lighted biographer  (and  Moore  was  a  man 
of  excellent  judgment,  great  readhig,  and  a 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  23 1 

beautiful  faculty  in  literature),  "has  ever 
been  produced  with  ease.  .  .  .  Labour 
is  the  parent  of  all  the  lasting  wonders  of 
this  world,  whether  a  verse  or  stone, 
whether  poetry  or  pyramids."  The  original 
manuscripts  of  the  comedy  manifested 
especially  to  Moore's  discerning  eye  "a 
certain  glare  and  coarseness,"  showing  the 
effect  of  recent  study  of  Wycherley  and 
Vanbrugh ;  but  also  they  revealed  the 
steady  pressure  of  a  delicate  taste  and  the 
incessant  operation  of  strenuous  refine- 
ment, alike  in  the  improvement  of  the 
characters,  the  conduct  of  the  plot,  the 
formation  and  arrangement  of  the  sentences, 
and  the  choice  of  epithets.  One  of  Sheri- 
dan's peculiarities,  indeed,  was  a  light, 
graceful,  indolent  manner  of  elegant  leisure. 
He  preferred  that  people  should  suppose 
that  his  work  was  always  done  spontane- 
ously and  with  careless  ease.  In  reality  he 
accomplished  nothing  without  effort.  Dur- 
ing a  considerable  part  of  his  life  —  cer- 
tainly till  he  was  thirty-six,  when  he 
joined  J^dmund  Burke's  sentimental  crusade 
against  Warren  Hastings  and  fortified  the 
rancorous  rhetoric  of  that  statesman  by  a 
refulgent  burst  of  verbal  fireworks  concern- 
ins:   the  Begum  Princesses   of   Oude  —  his 


232  SHERIDAN    AND    THE 

industry  was  minute,  assiduous,  and  vigilant. 
No  man  was  ever  a  more  pertinacious  worker, 
and  no  man  ever  seemed  to  have  less  occu- 
pation or  less  need  of  endeavour  for  the 
accomplishment  of  splendid  things.  He 
did  not,  as  so  many  fussy  people  do  —  who 
cannot  endure  to  be  employed  without  an 
everlasting  fluster  of  cackle  over  the  virtue  of 
their  toil  —  intrude  his  labour  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  his  friends.  He  displayed  the  finished 
statue  ;  he  did  not  vaunt  the  chips  and  the 
dust  that  were  made  in  the  cutting  of  it. 
He  gave  results ;  he  did  not  proclaim  the 
process  of  their  production.  "Few  per- 
sons with  so  much  natural  brilliancy  of 
tMents,"  says  Moore,  "ever  employed 
more  art  and  circumspection  in  their  dis- 
play." But  Sheridan's  reticence  in  this 
particular  was  not  exclusively  of  a  theatri- 
cal kind.  He  held  the  most  of  human 
achievements  to  be  (as  certainly  they  are) 
of  slight  importance  ;  he  shrunk  w'itli  all 
his  soul  from  the  disgrace  and  humiliation 
of  being  a  bore  ;  and  he  possessed  in  extraor- 
dinary fulness,  and  therefore  he  abun- 
dantly exerted,  the  rare  faculty  of  taste. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  time  wore 
on,  the  character  of  Sheridan  was  weakened 
and   degraded  by   misfortune,    embarrass- 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  233 

ment,  profligate  associations  (with  the 
Prince  Regent  and  his  shameless  set),  and 
most  of  all  by  intemperance  ;  but  at  the 
beginning  of  his  life,  and  for  some  years  of 
his  splendid  productiveness  and  prosperity, 
he  was  a  noble  gentleman  and  a  most 
individual  mental  power ;  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  a  virtue  of  his  character  should 
be  set  down  to  its  weakness. 

The  School  for  Scandal  was  produced 
under  auspicious  circumstances.  Garrick 
had  read  it  and  pronounced  it  excellent. 
Garrick,  moreover,  had  assisted  at  its 
rehearsals,  and  had  written  a  prologue  to 
introduce  it.  Arthur  Murphy,  in  his  life  of 
that  great  actor  —  then  retired  from  the 
stage  —  says  that  Garrick  was  never  known 
on  any  former  occasion  to  be  more  anxious 
for  a  favourite  piece.  On  the  first  night, 
May  8,  1777,  the  doors  of  Drury  Lane 
theatre,  which  were  opened  at  half-past 
five,  had  not  been  opened  an  hour  when  the 
house  was  crowded.  The  receipts  that 
night  were  £225.  King  spoke  the  prologue, 
which  is  in  Garrick' s  more  whimsical  and 
sprightly  manner.  Colman  furnished  an 
epilogue.  The  rehearsals  had  been  numer- 
ous and  careful.  Sheridan,  who  was  man- 
ager as   well  as   author,  had  taken  great 


234  SlIKKIDAX    AM)    TJIK 

pains.  Every  part  was  well  acted.  The 
incessant  play  of  wit  created  an  effect  of 
sparkling  animation.  Mrs.  Abington,  King, 
and  Smith  —  who  played  respectively  Lady 
Teazle,  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  and  Charles  Sur- 
face —  were  uncommonly  brilliant.  Palmer, 
as  Joseph  Surface,  was  superb.  The  only 
defect  noticed  was  a  sluggishness  of  move- 
ment in  act  second,  incident  to  some  excess 
of  talk  by  the  clique  of  scandal-mongers. 
Garrick  observed  that  the  characters  upon 
the  stage  at  the  falling  of  the  screen  waited 
too  long  before  they  spoke.  At  the  close 
of  the  screen  scene,  nevertheless,  ending 
the  fourth  act,  the  applause  was  tremen- 
dous. Frederick  Reynolds,  the  dramatist, 
happening  to  pass  through  the  pit  passage, 
"from  Vinegar  yard  to  Brydges  street," 
about  nine  o'clock  that  night,  heard  such  a 
noise,  all  at  once,  that  he  thought  the  thea- 
tre was  about  to  fall,  and  ran  for  his  life. 
The  public  enthusiasm,  after  the  final 
descent  of  the  baize,  was  prodigious.  Sheri- 
dan was  so  delighted  that  he  quaffed  un- 
limited wine,  got  drunk,  made  a  row  in  the 
street,  and  was  knocked  down  and  put  into 
the  watch-house.  The  London  newspapers 
teemed  with  praises  of  the  comedy,  not 
only  on   the  next  day  but  on  many  days 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  235 

thereafter.  Horace  AValpole,  who  speedily 
went  to  see  it,  wrote  thus  from  his  retreat 
at  Strawberry  Hill :  "To  my  great  surprise 
there  were  more  parts  performed  admirably 
in  this  comedy  than  I  almost  ever  saw  in 
any  play.  Mrs.  Abington  was  equal  to  the 
first  in  her  profession.  Yates,  Parsons, 
Miss  Pope,  and  Palmer,  all  shone."  Boaden, 
the  biographer,  in  allusion  to  King  and 
Mrs.  Abington  as  Sir  Peter  and  Lady 
Teazle,  said  they  were  so  suited  to  each 
other  that  they  lost  half  their  soul  in  sepa- 
ration. For  years  afterward  the  success  of 
the  School  for  Scandal  was  so  great  in 
London  that  it  clouded  the  fortune  of  the 
new  pieces  that  were  brought  forward  in  its 
wake.  From  the  capital  it  went  to  Bath, 
Edinburgh,  York,  Dublin,  and  other  large 
towns  of  the  kingdom.  Moore  records  that 
the  scenes  of  the  auction  and  the  screen 
were  presented  upon  the  Paris  stage  in 
1778,  in  a  piece  called  Les  Deux  Neveux^ 
and  that  the  whole  story  soon  found  its 
way  to  the  Theatre  Fran^ais,  under  the 
name  of  Tartuffe  de  3Iceu)'S.  Genest,  com- 
menting on  the  first  cast,  and  speaking  from 
his  ample  knowledge  of  the  chronicles  of 
the  first  performance  (if  not,  possibly, 
from  personal  recollection),  observes  that 


236  SIIKHIDAX    AND    THE 

"this  comedy  was  so  admirably  acted  that 
thoug;h  it  has  continued  on  the  acting  list 
at  Drury  Lane  from  that  time  to  this  (1832), 
and  been  several  times  represented  at 
Covent  Garden  and  the  Haymarket,  yet  no 
new  performer  has  ever  appeared  in  any 
one  of  the  principal  characters  that  was  not 
inferior  to  the  person  who  acted  it  origi- 
nally." The  statement  is  made  in  Tlie 
Thespian  Dictionary  (1802),  that  "the 
copy  of  this  play  was  lost  after  the  first 
night's  representation,  and  all  the  per- 
formers in  it  were  summoned  together  early 
the  next  day  in  order,  by  the  assistance  of 
their  parts,  to  prepare  another  prompter's 
book." 

The   London  productions  of  the    School 
for  Scandal  recorded  by  Genest  1  are  these  : 

Drury  Lane May  8,  1777. 

Haymarket September  2,  1785. 

Drury  Lane April  8, 1707. 

Drury  Lane May  18,  1798. 

Covent  Garden March  31, 1798. 

Covent  Garden May  .30.  1810. 

Covent  Garden Marcli  23,  1813. 

Covent  Garden September  10,  1818. 

Drury  Lane December  1,  1825. 

1  Some  Account  of  the  English  Stage,  from  tlie 
Restoration  in  1660  to  1830.     In  Ten  Volumes.     (Hy 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  2yj 

It  is  more  than  half  a  century  since  the 
industrious,  loquacious,  sensible,  matter-of- 
fact  parson  of  Bath  made  up  his  chronicle, 
and  many  brilliant  representations  of  the 
School  for  Scandal  have  been  accomplished 
within  that  time  on  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic. Tlie  method  in  which  the  piece 
was  originally  acted,  however,  has  been 
preserved  by  tradition,  and  actors  in  suc- 
ceeding generations  have  seldom  widely  de- 
parted from  it  —  although  they  may  have 
fallen  short  of  its  reputed  perfection  (a 
point  by  no  means  certain).  That  method 
was  the  delicate,  brilliant  exaggeration  of 
the  manners  of  polite  society  in  the  days  of 
George  III.  Mrs.  Abington  (1738-1815), 
the  original  representative  of  Lady  Teazle, 
made  her,  radically  and  consistently,  the 
affected  fine  lady,  without  giving  the  slight- 
est indication  that  she  had  ever  been  "a 
girl  bred  wholly  in  the  country  "  ;  and  Mrs. 
Abington' s  example  has  usually,  and  per- 
haps involuntarily,  been  followed.  Eliza- 
beth Farren  (1759-1829),  who  succeeded 
Mrs.  Abington  at  Drury  Lane,  gave  a  re- 
markably elegant  performance  of  the  part, 

the  Rev.  John  Genest,  of  Bath.)  Bath  :  Printed  by 
H.  E.  Canington.  Sold  by  Thomas  Rodd,  Great 
Xewport  street,  London,  1S32. 


238  SHKHIDAN    AND    THE 

hannonious  as  to  artitice  with  the  ideal  in- 
dicated by  her  predecessor,  but  superior  to 
that  ideal  in  natural  refinement.  It  was  in 
this  character  that  Miss  Farren  took  leave 
of  the  stage,  April  8,  1797,  just  before  her 
marriage  with  the  Earl  of  Derby.^  The 
next  important  embodiment  of  Lady  Teazle 
was  that  of  Dora  Jordan  (1762-1816).  That 
delightful  actress,  while  assuming  the  af- 
fected fine  lady,  allowed  an  occasional  trace 
of  rustic  breeding  to  show  itself  through  an 
artificial  manner.  John  Gait,  who  wrote 
biographies  of  both  Miss  Farren  and  Mrs. 
Jordan,  but  had  never  seen  either  of  them, 
states  that  Dora  Jordan's  impersonation  of 
Lady  Teazle  was  praised  for  "those  little 
points  and  sparkles  of  rusticity  which  are 
still,  by  the  philosophical  critics,  supposed 
to  mark  the  country  education  of  the  fas- 
cinating heroine."  And  Gait's  parallel  be- 
tween the  two  is  instructively  significant. 
Miss  Farren  was  ' '  as  the  camellia  of  the 
conservatory  —  soft,    beautiful,    and    deli- 

'  "  I  recollect  the  circumstance  of  seeing  Lord 
Derb}-  leaving  his  private  box  to  creep  to  her  (Miss 
Farren)  behind  the  screen,  and,  of  course,  we  all 
looked  with  impatience  for  the  discovery,  hoping 
the  screen  would  fall  a  little  too  soon  and  show  to 
the  audience  Lord  Derby  as  well  as  Lady  Teazle." 
—  Miss  AVynme's  Diary  of  a  Lady  of  Quality. 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  239 

cate."  Mrs.  Jordan  was  "as  the  rose  of 
the  garden,  sprinkled  with  dew."  All  the 
representatives  of  Lady  Teazle,  for  a  hun- 
dred years,  have  been  one  or  the  other  of 
the  varieties  thus  denoted. 

Historic  chronicles  record  many  distin- 
guished names  of  actors  upon  the  British 
stage  who  have  been  identified  with  the 
School  for  Scandal  and  who  have  shai-pened 
the  outline  and  deepened  the  colour  of  those 
traditions  as  to  its  performance  which  it 
was  a  part  of  their  vocation  to  transmit. 
King,  who  left  the  stage  in  1802,  had  earlier 
parted  from  Sheridan.  His  immediate  suc- 
cessors as  Sir  Peter  Teazle  were  Richard 
AVroughton  and  the  elder  Mathews  (1776- 
1835),  but  neither  of  them  was  conspicu- 
ously fine  in  it.  Mathews  played  Sir  Peter 
at  twenty-eight.  Munden  (1758-1832) 
acted  it,  with  Mrs.  Abington  as  Lady 
Teazle,  on  March  31,  1789,  in  London. 
Before  that  time  he  had  acted  it  in  Dublin 
with  Miss  O'Neill  as  Lady  Teazle ;  and  he 
opened  the  season  of  1816-17  with  it,  at 
the  new  Drury  Lane  (the  old  one  was 
burned  down  on  February  24,  1809).  Dur- 
ing his  farewell  engagement,  October  1  to 
October  31,  1823,  at  Drury  Lane,  he  played 
it  twice  —  on  the   18th  and  on  the   25th. 


240  SIIEKIDAN    AND    THE 

His  performance  of  Sir  Peter  was  always 
admired  for  polished  deportment,  freedom 
from  suspicion,  and  boundless  confidence, 
"When  an  actor  retires,"  said  Charles 
Lamb,  "how  many  worthy  persons  must 
perish  with  him  !  With  Munden  —  Sir 
Peter  Teazle  must  experience  a  shock  ;  Sir 
Robert  Bramble  gives  up  the  ghost ;  Crack 
ceases  to  breathe."  The  discrimination 
here  suggested  is  significant :  Sir  Peter  was 
in  the  second  grade  —  not  the  first  —  of 
that  great  actor's  achievements.  It  was  in 
the  first  grade,  however,  of  the  achievements 
of  his  eminent  successor,  William  Farren  i 
(1786-1861),  the  best  Lord  Ogleby  of  this 
century,  on  the  British   stage,  who,  while 

1  On  the  occasion  when  William  Farren  made  his 
first  appearance  upon  the  London  stage,  playing  Sir 
Peter  Teazle,  the  School  for  Scandal  was  inter- 
preted by  a  remarkable  group  of  actors.  This 
performance  occurred  at  Covent  Garden  (Harris, 
manager),  on  September  10,  1818;  and  this  is  a  part 
of  the  cast : 

Sir  Peter  Teazle Mr.  Farren. 

Sir  Oliver  Surface Mr.  Terry. 

Joseph  Surface Mr.  Young. 

Charles  Surface C.  Kemble. 

Crabtree Mr.  Blanchard. 

Sir  Benjamin  Backbite Mr.  Liston. 

Lady  Teazle Louisa  Brunton. 

Maria Miss  Foote. 

Mrs.  Candour Mrs.  Gibbs. 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  24I 

he  lacked  robust  vigour  for  the  impersona- 
tion of  Sir  Anthony  Absokite  and  kindred 
characters,  possessed  exactly  the  lace-ruffle- 
and-diamond  style  essential  for  the  ex- 
pression of  Sir  Peter  Teazle's  refinement, 
high-bred  testiness,  and  amused,  satirical 
cynicism.  Xo  English  actor  since  Farren 
has  been  esteemed  his  equal  in  this  char- 
acter. The  most  notable  performance  of 
Sir  Peter  that  the  English  audience  has 
seen  since  Farren- s  day  was,  apparently, 
that  of  Samuel  Phelps  (1797-1872).  It  is 
thought  to  have  lacked  Farren' s  distinction 
and  his  delicacy  of  mechanism  and  finish, 
but  it  was  accounted  remarkable  for  the 
qualities  of  force,  sincerity,  authority,  and 
restraint.  William  Farren,  son  of  ' '  old 
Farren,"  performed  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  in  a 
revival  of  the  School  for  Scandal  which 
was  effected  at  the  Vaudeville  theatre,  Lon- 
don, in  1872,  and  gained  public  favour  and 
critical  admiration. 

The  character  of  Lady  Teazle  has  had 
many  representatives  on  the  British  stage, 
only  a  few  of  whom  are  now  remembered. 
Louisa  Brunton,  who  became  Countess  of 
Craven,  and  Miss  Smithson  (1800-185-1), 
who  wedded  with  Berlioz,  the  composer, 
were  among  the  earliest  followers  in  the 
Q 


242  SHKUIDAX    AND    TIIK 

footsteps  of  Mrs.  Abington,  Miss  Farren, 
and  Mrs.  Jordan.  Mrs.  "Warner  (1804- 
1854),  acted  the  part  with  Phelps,  and  was 
esteemed  one  of  its  best  representatives. 
Lucy  Elizabeth  Vestris  (1798-1856)  gave  an 
impersonation  of  Lady  Teazle,  which,  al- 
though superficial  and  shallow,  was  ex- 
ceedingly vivacious  and  piquant.  Louisa 
Cranstoun  Nisbett  (1812-1858),  who  be- 
came Lady  Boothby  —  the  most  radiant 
and  enchanting  of  the  old  stage  beauties  — 
made  the  part  bewitching  and  brilliant, 
without  suggestion  of  much  sincerity  or 
depth.  One  of  the  most  highly  esteemed 
and  thoughtfully  commended  portrayals  of 
Lady  Teazle  that  have  been  recorded  of 
late  years  was  that  given  by  Marie  Wilton 
(Mrs.  Bancroft)  at  the  Prince  of  Wales 
theatre,  London,  in  April  1874.  That  intel- 
lectual and  polished  actress  Genevieve  Ward 
has  acted  it,  with  sparkling  effect,  both  in 
French  and  English. 

The  American  record  of  the  School  for 
Scandal  begins  with  a  performance  of  it 
given  at  the  John  street  theatre,  New  York, 
on  December  IG,  1785.  The  famous  piece 
was  then  acted  —  according  to  the  excellent 
authority  of  Ireland — "probably  for  the 
first  time  in  America."    The  first  represen- 


SCHOOL    P'OR    SCANDAL.  243 

tation  that  the  comedy  received  at  the  old 
Park  theatre  occurred  on  December  3,  1798. 
Since  then  it  has  been  performed  in  every 
considerable  theatre  in  the  United  States, 
and  often  it  has  enlisted  the  talent  of  re- 
markably brilliant  groups  of  actors.  There 
is  probably  no  veteran  play -goer  who  could 
not,  with  shght  effort  of  the  memory,  recall 
a  cast  of  the  School  for  Scand.al  which  he 
would  regard  as  incomparable  and  memo- 
rable. Xo  piece  has  enjoyed  more  favour  as 
the  signalismg  feature  of  special  dramatic  oc- 
casions, i   The  chief  part  —  the  part  that  is  a 

1  The  comedy  was  acted,  with  this  excellent  cast, 
for  the  benefit  of  John  Brougham,  at  Xiblo's  the- 
atre, May  19,  1869,  p.m.  : 

Sir  Peter  Teazle John  Gilbert. f 

Sir  01i%er  Surface John  Brougham. f 

Joseph  Surface Xeil  Warner. 

Charles  Surface Edwin  Adams. f 

Crabtree A.  W.  Young.f 

Sir  Benjamin  Backbite Owen  Marlowe. f 

Rowley T.J.  Hind.f 

Moses Harry  Beckett. f 

Trip J.  C.  ^Villiamson. 

Snake Frank  Rae.f 

Careless J.  "W .  Collier. 

Sir  Harry  Bumper K.  Green. 

Lady  Teazle Mrs.  D.  P.  Bowers. 

Maria Miss  Pauline  Markham. 

Lady  Sneer  well Mrs.  .John  Sefton.f 

Mrs.  Candour Miss  Fanny  Morant.f 

t  Dead. 


244  SIIKKIDAN    AND    THE 

spring  of  crystal  vitality  for  the  whole  fab- 
ric of  the  piece  —  is  Lady  Teazle,  and  upon 
the  representative  of  that  character  the 
comedy  is  largely  dependent.  On  the  Amer- 
ican stage  Lady  Teazle  has  been  acted  by 
Mrs,  Morris,  ^Nlrs.  Henry,  Mrs.  Hallam, 
Mrs.  Lipman,  Miss  Westray  (Mrs.  W.  B. 
Wood),  Mrs.  Shaw,  Mrs.  Gilfert,  Fanny 
Kemble  (September  21,  1832),  Mrs.  Hamb- 
lin,  Miss  Cooper,  Kose  Telbin,  Sarah  Ander- 
ton,  Mrs.  Russell  (now  Mrs.  Hoey),  Mme. 
Ponisi,  Mrs.  Mowatt,  Catharine  Sinclair 
(Mrs.  Edwin  Forrest),  Ellen  Tree  (Mrs. 
Charles  Kean),  Julia  Dean,  Eliza  Logan, 
Mrs.  Catherine  Farren,  Jean  Davenport 
(Mrs.  Lander),  Mrs.  Bowers,  Laura  Keene, 
Miss  Jane  Coombs,  Miss  Madeline  Hen- 
riques,  Miss  Rose  Eytinge,  Miss  Fanny 
Davenport,  Mrs.  Julia  Bennett  Barrow, 
Mrs.  Scott-Siddons,  Miss  Adelaide  Neilson, 
Miss  Rose  Coghlan,  Miss  Augusta  Dargon, 
Miss  Annie  Clarke,  Mrs.  F.  B.  Conway, 
Miss  Ada  Dyas,  Mrs.  Clara  Jennings,  Miss 
Ada  Cavendish,  Mrs.  Rose  Lelaind,  Mrs. 
Langtry,  and  Miss  Ada  Rehan. 

Among  distinguished  representatives  of 
Sir  Peter  Teazle  who  have  been  seen  on  the 
American  stage  may  be  named  Mr.  Henry, 
Mr.  Hallam,  Mr.  W.  B.  Wood,  Joseph  Jef- 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  245 

ferson,  the  grandfather  of  our  Rip  Van 
"Winkle,  William  Warren  (the  father  of 
the  late  "William  "Warren,  of  our  time,  who 
also  was  famous  and  especially  fine  in  this 
character),  Mr.  Twaits,  Mr.  Roberts,  Mr. 
Blanchard,  Mr.  Finn,  Mr.  Chippendale, 
Henry  Placide.  Peter  Richings,  Henry 
Wallack,  Charles  Bass,  William  Rufus 
Blake.  William  Davidge,  John  Gilbert, 
Charles  Fisher,  Mark  Smith,  and  Henry 
Edwards.  The  character  of  Charles  Sur- 
face has  been  interpreted,  for  American 
audiences,  by  Mr.  Hodgkinson,  Mr.  Cooper, 
George  Barrett,  Charles  Kemble,  Frederick 
B.  Conway,  James  E.  Murdoch,  William 
Wheatley,  George  "S'andenlioff,  E.  L.  Daven- 
port. Lester  Wallack,  Charles  Wyndham, 
H.  J.  Montague,  Osmund  Tearle,  Charles 
Coghlan,  Charles  Barron,  George  Clarke, 
and  John  Drew. 

Most  of  the  old  comedies  contain  impro- 
prieties ;  sometimes  of  situation,  more 
commonly  of  language  ;  and  those  are  not 
adornments  but  blemishes.  Every  old 
comedy,  furthermore,  which  has  survived 
in  actual  representation,  has  gathered  to 
itself,  in  the  course  of  years,  a  considerable 
number  of  extraneous  passages,  which  may 
collectively,  though  perhaps  not  quite  accu- 


246  SHERIDAN    AND    THE 

rately,  be  described  as  "gags."  Those  are 
the  contributions,  mainly,  of  actors  and 
stage-managers.  They  are  either  figments 
of  fancy,  or  readily  appreciable  jokes,  or 
local  and  particular  allusions,  which,  in 
actual  performance  of  the  piece,  were  found 
to  be  effective.  In  some  cases  they  have 
become  so  solidly  incorporated  into  the 
original  text  that  they  have  gained  accept- 
ance as  actually  parts  of  the  original  struct- 
ure, and  the  omission  of  them  has  been 
known  to  prompt  a  righteous  remonstrance 
against  the  iniquity  of  tampering  with  the 
author.  As  a  rule  they  are  both  spoken 
and  heard  under  the  impression  that  they 
belong  to  the  play.  The  "pickled  ele- 
phant" that  figures  in  Valentine's  mad 
scene,  in  Love  for  Love,  might  be  cited  as 
an  example  of  this  sort  of  embellishment. 
The  passage  is  not  in  Congreve's  text,  but 
it  is  generally  used.  It  was  introduced  by 
the  elder  Wallack  —  then  a  young  man  on 
the  London  stage  —  on  a  night  when  he  was 
acting  Valentine,  in  place  of  Elliston,  who 
was  disabled  with  gout.  That  day  an  ele- 
phant had  gone  mad  and  been  shot  by  the 
guards,  and  this  incident  had  caused  much 
popular  excitement.  Valentine,  who  is 
pretending  to  be    deranged,   has    to    talk 


SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL.  247 

wildly,  and  Wallack's  sudden  ejaculation, 
•  •  Bring  me  a  pickled  elephant,"  was  thought 
to  be  excellent  lunacy  —  for  it  was  received 
with  copious  applause  ;  and  EUiston,  seated 
in  his  invalid-chair,  at  the  wing,  accosted 
Wallack,  as  that  actor  came  off,  and  mourn- 
fully exclaimed,  "They  never  shot  an  ele- 
phant for  me,  young  man!"  Since  then 
every  representative  of  Valentine  makes 
this  allusion,  although  now  the  reference  is 
pointless  and  the  image  stands  m  the  cate- 
gory* of  Oriana's  "tall,  gigantic  sights  "  and 
Tilburina's  "whistling  moon."  The  pres- 
ence of  such  points  in  those  old  plays  may 
well  intimate  to  the  judicious  observer  that 
their  text  has  not,  from  the  beginning,  been 
regarded  as  a  sacred  thing,  and  that  the 
prime  necessity  of  the  stage  —  which  is 
effect — may  sometimes  be  found  to  war- 
rant both  additions  and  omissions  in  the 
presentment  of  works  that  are,  in  some 
measure,  obsolete.  One  thing  is  certain  — 
that  the  indelicacy  of  those  old  pieces  is 
offensive  to  the  taste  of  the  present  time, 
and  ought  not  ever,  in  these  days,  to  be 
thrust  upon  an  audience.  It  is  not  an 
answer  to  talk  of  "Bowdlerism,"  or  to 
sneer  at  "purists,"  or  to  stigmatise  re- 
finement   as   squeamish    folly.      There    is 


248  SCHOOL    FOR    SCANDAL. 

much  pure  gold  in  the  old  English  comedy; 
but  the  dirt  that  is  in  it  should  be  cast 
aside.  Nor  is  the  modern  theatre  under 
any  sort  of  obligation  to  treat  that  body  of 
stage  literature  as  if  it  were  a  celestial  reve- 
lation. The  book  of  the  School  for  Scan- 
dal prepared  by  Augustin  Daly  (who  first 
produced  the  comedy  at  his  theatre  on 
{September  12,  1874,  and  revived  it  on 
January  20,  1891,  with  Ada  Rehan  as 
Lady  Teazle),  has  been  edited  in  a  spirit 
harmonious  with  these  views.  The  coarse- 
ness of  the  scandal-mongering  colloquies 
has  been  expunged.  A  few  sentences  have 
been  dropped,  in  order  to  shorten  the 
piece,  and  a  few  others  have  been  trans- 
posed—  the  objects  sought  being  incessant 
movement  and  the  circumscription  of  each 
act  within  a  single  scenic  picture.  That 
comedy  is  not  only  the  best  work  of  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  writers  that  ever  lived, 
but  it  is  one  of  the  best  dramatic  pieces 
ever  written,  and  the  revival  of  it  from 
time  to  time  will,  doubtless,  continue  to 
occur  upon  the  stage  as  long  as  the  stage 
endures.  This  certainly  should  be  hoped, 
for  the  School  for  Scandal  teaches  charity 
and  reticence  ;  and  these  are  among  the 
best  virtues  that  adorn  character  and  sanc- 
tify life. 


FARQUHAR  AND  THE  INCONSTANT.      249 


XVII. 

FARQUHAR    AND    THE    INCOXSTAyT. 

THE  plays  that  survive  from  the  past  are 
the  plays  that  are  not,  in  their  spirit, 
their  character,  their  essential  vitality, 
restricted  to  the  particular  fashion  of  the 
periods  in  which  they  were  ^Titten.  Jon- 
son  and  Shakespeare  lived  and  wrote  side 
by  side  ;  but  while  Jon  son's  plays  are 
no  longer  acted  those  of  Shakespeare  still 
keep  the  stage.  The  Aldiymist  would  not 
be  accepted  now,  except,  perhaps,  for  a 
night  or  two,  by  an  audience  of  scholars 
and  as  a  curiosity.  That  comedy  contains, 
indeed,  in  the  character  of  old  Mammon, 
the  dramatic  ancestor  of  Sir  Sampson 
Legend  and  Sir  Anthony  Absolute,  and 
some  of  the  speeches  in  it  are  wonderfully 
vigorous,  ornate,  and  eloquent.  Its  object, 
however,  was  satire  of  a  local  and  contem- 
poraneous mania — the  practice  of  astrology 
and  the  quest  for  the  wonderful  philoso- 
pher's stone  that  would  transmute  worth- 


250     FARQUIIAR  AND  THE  INCONSTANT. 

less  metals  into  gt)ld  —  and  with  the 
disappearance  of  that  mania  disappeared 
also  the  vitality  of  the  satire  upon  it.  As 
You  Like  It,  on  the  other  hand,  and  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing,  because  they  are 
comedies  dealing  faithfully  and  powerfully 
with  the  elemental  facts  of  human  nature, 
are  as  much  alive  to-day,  and  as  significant 
and  welcome  upon  the  stage  as  they  were 
when  first  presented  in  Shakespeare's  time. 
The  dramatic  author  who  portrays  repre- 
sentative types  of  humanity  rather  than  the 
ephemeral  eccentricities  of  the  hour  in 
which  he  lives  is  recognised  by  mankind, 'in 
all  periods,  as  being  the  bearer  of  a  signifi- 
cant and  interesting  message.  Farquhar, 
to  some  extent,  dealt  with  the  permanent 
and  abiding  facts  of  human  nature,  and  that 
is  one  reason  why  he  survives  as  a  dramatist 
and  pleases  the  public  of  to-dtiy.  The 
auxiliary  reasons  are  his  abundant  flow  of 
animal  spirits,  his  droll  humour,  his  nimble 
invention,  his  skill  in  raillery,  and  his  grace- 
ful art  in  making  sprightly  language  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  gallant,  mirthful, 
amorous,  adventurous  character  —  women 
who  fascinate  by  every  dazzling  and  melt- 
ing charm  of  coquetry,  and  men  who  turn 
all  life  to  a  feast  of  roses  and  revel  in  its 
fragrance. 


FARQUHAR  AND  THE  INCONSTANT.     25  I 

George  Farquliar  was  born  in  1678,  at 
Londonderry,  Ireland,  and  was  educated 
at  that  place  and  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman  and  he 
proved  to  be  a  wild  youth.  He  was  entered 
at  Trinity,  as  "a  sizar,"  on  July  17,  1694, 
and  he  left  it  in  1695.  In  college  he  was 
considered  a  dull  fellow,  and  one  account 
of  him  says  that  he  was  expelled  for  an 
irreverent  jest,  relative  to  one  of  the  mira- 
cles recited  in  the  Xew  Testament ;  while 
another  relates  that  he  left  the  university 
on  account  of  the  death  of  his  patron,  Dr. 
AYiseman,  Bishop  of  Dromore.  On  leavmg 
college  he  joined  the  Dublin  theatre,  then 
managed  by  Ashbury,  and  made  his  first 
appearance  as  an  actor,  choosing  the  part  of 
Othello.  That  was  in  1695.  He  remained 
on  the  stage  only  one  season.  His  memory 
was  strong,  his  delivery  fluent,  his  de- 
meanour elegant,  his  person  good  ;  but  his 
voice  was  feeble  and  he  could  never  quite 
control  a  nervous  tendency  to  stage  fright. 
The  immediate  cause  of  his  retirement  from 
the  stage,  however,  was  an  accident.  He 
had  the  misfortune  to  inflict  a  dangerous 
wound  upon  a  stage  antagonist,  when  acting 
in  Dry  den's  play  of  The  Indian  Emperor, 
and  the  thought  that  he  had  come  near 


252      FARQUIIAR  AM)  TIIK  JNC'ONSTANT. 

killing  a  fellow-creature  so  impressed  his 
mind  that  he  resolved  to  quit  forever  the 
profession  of  an  actor.  Such  is  the  story  ; 
but  this  sensitive  disposition  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  becoming,  subsequently,  a 
soldier.  He  left  Dublin,  for  London,  in 
1696,  in  the  society  of  that  brilliant  actor 
Robert  Wilks,  and  on  reaching  the  capital 
of  the  British  kingdom  he  speedily  made  a 
pleasant  impression  in  society,  and  pres- 
ently was  fortunate  enough  to  win  the 
favour  of  the  Earl  of  Orrery,  who  made  him 
a  lieutenant  in  his  own  regiment  and  sent 
him,  on  service,  into  Ireland  aiul  elsewhere, 
so  that  for  several  years  he  led  a  military 
life ;  and  it  is  recorded  that  he  was  invaria- 
bly upright  in  his  conduct  and  noted  for  his 
courage, 

Wilks,  who  early  discerned  Farquhar's 
talent  and  perceived  the  drift  of  his  mind, 
urged  him  to  write  for  the  stage,  and  in 
1698  was  brought  out  his  first  comedy  — 
made  in  compliance  with  the  wish  of  that 
good  friend  —  Love  and  a  Bottle.  He  after- 
ward wrote  The  Constant  Couple.,  or  a 
Trip  to  the  Jubilee  ;  Sir  Harry  Wildair  ; 
The  Inconstant,  or  the  Way  to  Win  Him; 
The  Tinn  Ficals  ;  The  Stage  Coach  ;  The 
Recruiting  Officer  ;  and  The  Beaux'  Strata- 


FARQUHAR  AND  THE  INCONSTANT.      253 

gem.  In  The  Constant  Couple  the  character 
of  Sir  Harry  Wildair  first  occurs  —  a  part 
in  wliich  Wilks  was  conspicuously  brilliant 
and  which  came  to  be  intimately  associated 
with  the  shining  name  of  Peg  Woffington. 
Wilks  acted  in  every  one  of  his  plays  and 
Anne  Oldfield  in  two  of  them.  The  Ticin 
Rivals  was  long  regarded  as  Farquhar's 
most  artistic  composition,  but  it  has  not 
survived  in  equal  repute  with  The  Incon- 
stant or  The  Recruiting  Offlcei^  or  even 
The  Beaux'  Stratagem  ;  for  the  first  two  of 
those  pieces  are  still  acted,  and  the  last,  on 
accomit  of  the  dashing  character  of  Archer, 
long  kept  its  place  upon  the  stage,  even  in 
the  theatre  of  America.  llie  Recruiting 
Officer^  it  will  be  remembered,  contains  the 
sprightly  part  of  Captain  Plume  and  is  a 
comedy  of  piquant  reminiscence  of  Far- 
quliar's  own  experience  and  observation 
while  on  duty  in  the  romantic  old  city  of 
Shrewsbury.  It  was  the  habit  of  this 
author  to  sketch  himself  in  his  wild,  gallant 
characters,  and  he  has  aptly  indicated  his 
ideal  of  the  bright  original,  in  a  string  of ' 
exi3ressive  adjectives  descriptive  of  Young 
Mirabel,  whom  he  indicates,  in  the  preface 
to  The  Inconstant^  as  '-a  gay,  splendid, 
generous,   easy,   fine    young    gentleman." 


254      FAlUiUIIAR  AND  THE   IXCOXSTANT. 

Farquliar  had  a  short  life  but  a  merry  one, 
notwithstanding  that  his  temperament  was 
melancholy  and  his  final  experience  unfor- 
tmiate.  It  was  he  who  discovered  and  first 
recognised  the  talent  of  Anne  Oldfield, 
whom  he  found  in  the  Mitre  Tavern,  in  St. 
James's  Market ;  and  it  was  under  his 
influence  and  that  of  Sir  John  Vanbrugh 
that  this  brilliant  girl  was  introduced  upon 
the  stage,  in  1099,  by  Kich,  at  the  King's 
theatre.  Anne  was  only  sixteen  and  Far- 
quhar  only  twenty-one  at  that  time,  and 
for  a  while  they  were  lovers  ;  but  in  1703 
the  gentleman  got  married,  and  four  years 
later,  in  April  1707,  he  died  —  aged  twenty- 
nine.  The  marriage  was  a  mercenary  one, 
on  his  part,  and  he  appears  to  have  been 
properly  rewarded  by  finding  that  his  wife 
had  no  fortune  whatever.  It  is  recorded, 
though,  that  he  took  the  disappointment 
in  a  philosophical  spirit  and  treated  his 
connubial  partner  with  all  i)Ossible  chivalry. 
Toward  the  last  he  sold  his  military  com- 
mission, in  order  to  pay  his  debts,  and 
presently  sunk  into  despondency  and  death. 
His  final  effort  was  The.  Beaux'  Stratafjem. 
His  mental  brilliancy  and  sportive  humour 
remained  active  and  salient  to  the  last. 
When  he  was  dead  Wilks  found  among  his 


FARQUHAIi  AND  THE  INCONSTANT.      255 

papers  a  forlorn  little  note  ^yhich  sadly  and 
simply  said  :  "Dear  Bob,  I  have  not  any- 
thing to  leave  thee  to  peri^etuate  my  mem- 
ory but  two  helpless  girls  :  Look  upon 
them  sometimes  and  think  of  him  that  was, 
to  the  last  moment  of  his  life,  thine,  George 
Farquhar."' 

The  storj'  of  this  brief  and  bright  life 
seems  a  fit  prelude  to  the  sparkling  play  of 
The  Inconstant,  in  which  it  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive the  author's  ideal  of  himself,  together 
with  the  essential  characteristics  of  his 
mind  and  temperament.  That  piece,  like  all 
his  works,  has  to  be  cut  and  altered  a  lit- 
tle, in  order  that  it  may  be  represented, 
for  he  did  not  scruple  sometimes  to  write 
in  a  licentious  vein  and  to  use  expressions 
which  in  these  days  would  offend  the  audi- 
ence. It  is  surprismg,  however,  to  consider 
how  well  that  comedy  bears  being  freed 
from  the  taint  of  sensual  warmth,  which 
was  the  characteristic  of  the  plays  of  Far- 
quhar's  period,  and  how  much  excellent 
substance  remains.  Mirabel  is  the  type  of 
many  young  fellows  who  may  be  met  with 
in  society  everywhere.  He  rejoices  in  his 
youth  and  strength,  in  gallantry"  and  adven- 
ture, and  he  will  keep  his  freedom.  He 
loves   Oriana,  but  having  been  contracted 


256      FAKQUHAll  AND  THE  INCONSTANT. 

to  lier  he  shrinks  from  matrimony.  The 
course  of  events  is  too  methodical.  Con- 
ventionality makes  it  insipid,  and  therefore 
he  breaks  away  and  is  inconstant.  Such  a 
temperament  inclines  to  value  not  what  it 
can  have  but  what  is  denied  to  it;  yet 
presently  it  can  be  awakened  by  peril  and 
touched  by  devotion  and  made  to  realise 
that  life  and  love  are  very  serious  matters. 
Oriana,  devotedly  fond  of  him,  but  likewise 
skilful  in  coquetry,  employs  various  wiles 
in  order  to  subdue  this  errant  cavalier,  and 
the  movement  of  the  piece  is  the  rapid  and 
continually  shifting  encounter  of  their  wits, 
in  those  stratagems  of  love.  The  flow  of 
intrigue,  the  variety  of  incident,  the  sparkle 
of  language,  the  undercurrent  of  passion, 
the  reality,  sincerity,  and  piquancy  of  char- 
acter, the  occasional  touches  of  sentiment, 
the  flexibility  of  action,  and  the  absorbing 
interest  of  the  climax  —  at  which  a  feeling 
of  almost  agonised  suspense  is  sustained 
with  superb  skill  —  are  living  virtues  in  a 
play  ;  and  they  make  this  one  as  significant 
and  valuable  and  enjoyable  to  the  world 
now  as  it  was  in  the  romantic  days  of  good 
Queen  Anne.  The  closing  scene  of  it, 
which  has  always  been  much  admired,  is 
said  to  have  been  partly  based  upon  an  in- 


FARQUHAR  AND  THE  IXCOXSTANT.      237 

cident  in  the  experience  of  tlie  author.  The 
entire  piece  is  founded  on  The  Wild  Goose 
Chase,  written  by  John  Fletclier  and  pro- 
duced in  1621.  "  I  took  the  hint,"  says  Far- 
quhar,  in  his  preface,  "from  Fletcher's  Wild 
Goose  Chase,  and  to  those  who  say  that  I 
have  spoiled  the  original  I  wish  no  other  in- 
jury but  that  they  would  say  it  again." 
Something  more  than  a  hint  was,  in  fact, 
taken  from  the  elder  dramatist ;  yet  The 
Inconstant  contains  much  that  is  original, 
and  especially  it  lives  and  glows  with  the 
characteristic  spirit  of  impulsive,  impetuous 
sprightliness  and  wanton  mirth  which  was 
essentially  Farquhar's  nature.  When  first 
produced  this  comedy  was  encumbered  with 
a  miserable  prologue  of  thirty-four  lines, 
written  by  P.  A.  Motteux  and  crammed  full 
of  similes  drawn  from  the  cook's  kitchen. 
Also  it  was  furnished  with  an  epilogue  by 
the  poet  laureate,  Nicholas  Rowe.  announc- 
ing the  moral  of  the  piece  to  be  that 

"  With  easy  freedom  and  a  gay  address 
A  pressing  lover  seldom  wants  success, 
Whilst  the  respectful,  like  the  Greeks,  sits 

down, 
And  wastes  a  ten  years'  siege  before  one 

town." 

The  Inconstant  made  its  advent  upon  the 


2S8      FARQUHAK  AM)  THE  IJSCONSTANT. 

Aiiierican  stage  on  January  1,  1759,  at  the 
old  theatre  on  Cruger's  Wharf,  New  York. 
In  June  1795  a  three-act  version  of  it,  made 
by  the  reigning  favourite  Hodgkinson,  was 
produced  at  the  tlieatre  in  John  street,  witli 
Hodgkinson  as  young  Mirabel.  In  1829 
this  old  comedy  was  given  at  the  I'ark 
theatre,  and  Mirabel  was  acted  by  George 
Barrett.  In  1882,  at  the  same  theatre,  the 
piece  was  represented  with  a  distinguished 
cast  of  the  characters,  including  C'harles 
Kemble  as  young  Mirabel,  Henry  Tlacide 
as  old  Mirabel,  Mr.  Simpson  as  Duretete, 
Mrs.  Sharp  as  Oriana,  and  Fanny  Kemble 
as  Bisarre.  Murdock  lirst  acted  young 
Mirabel  in  New  York  in  1857  at  Burton's 
theatre.  Neither  of  the  Wallacks  appears 
to  have  played  INlirabel,  although  Lester 
Wallack  played  Duretete.  Among  the  rep- 
resentatives of  Mirabel,  in  old  times,  were 
Gifford,  1744  ;  Palmer,  1751  ;  Smith,  1753  ; 
Wrougton,  1779  ;  Farren,  1780  ;  Pope,  1787; 
C.  Kemble,  1811;  and  Kae,  1817.  Those 
performances  occurred  at  Drury  Lane  or 
Govent  Garden,  in  London.  Garrick,  at 
Goodman's  Fields,  played  Duretete,  and 
this  performance  he  repeated,  for  Kitty 
Olive's  benefit,  at  Drury  Lane,  in  1701. 
The  younger  Bannister  took  Duretete  in 


FARQUHAR  AND  THE  INCONSTANT.      259 

1798.  Oriana  has  been  acted,  among 
others,  by  Peg  Woffington,  the  pretty  Mrs. 
Davies,  wife  of  Dr.  Johnson's  friend  the 
actor  and  bookseller,  Mrs.  Lessingham, 
and  Sally  Booth.  Kitty  Clive  played  Bisarre, 
and  so  did  Mrs.  Abington. 

Augiistin  Daly,  who  revived  the  comedy 
on  November  7,  1872,  with  Clara  Morris  as 
Oriana,  and  again  on  January  8,  1889,  with 
Ada  Kehan  in  that  character,  primed  the 
text  of  The  Inconstant^  discarded  the  scene 
of  the  monkish  masquerade,  restored  the 
passage  portraying  Duretete's  rage  and 
comic  pugnacity  at  the  end  of  act  third,  and 
compressed  the  piece  into  four  acts  ;  and  at 
the  latest  of  these  revivals,  a  few  lines  by 
the  present  writer  were  added,  by  way  of 
epilogue,  spoken  by  Oriana  —  who  ends  the 
play.i     The  custom  of  naming  this  piece 

1  Not  yet!  for  what  if  Oriana  choose 
The  crown  of  all  your  rapture  to  refuse? 
Through  many  a  maze  of  frolic,  yet  of  pain, 
Her  faithful  heart  has  felt  your  gay  disdain. 
Shall  she  not  triumph,  —  now  the  strife  is  o'er  — 
And  punish  him  who  vexed  her  so  before? 
No  !  Take  her  hand  :  her  heart  has  long  been  yours. 
True  love  in  trouble  all  the  more  endures! 
She'll  cling  the  closer  for  the  risk  she  braved, 
And  cherisli  all  the  more  the  life  she  saved. 
There's  nought  a  loving  woman  will  not  do 
When  once  she  feels  her  lover's  heart  is  true. 


26o     FARQUHAR  AN1>  TIIK  INCONSTANT. 

Wi7ie  Works  Wonders  (in  allusion  to  the 
incident  of  the  red  Burgundy  marked  one 
thousand,  in  the  last  scene)  originated 
many  years  ago,  but  that  title  was  unknown 
to  the  time  of  Farqidiar.  INIirabel  has  been 
played  by  many  dashing  light  comedians  of 
the  last  hundred  years  and  more,  but  upon 
the  American  stage  the  part  is  inseparably 
entwined  with  the  name  and  fame  of  that 
glittering  comedian  of  other  days,  James  E. 
Murdoch.  The  serious  side  of  Mirabel's 
nature  was  made  earnest  and  sw^eet  by  him, 
and  by  establishing  a  conviction  of  his  in- 
herent manliness  and  generosity  he  intensi- 
fied enjoyment  of  his  superficial  insincer- 
ity and  his  manifold  pranks,  Clara  Mor- 
ris, playing  Oriana,  presented  a  delicious 
type  of  womanhood,  rich,  variable,  capri- 
cious, and  by  the  simulation  of  beauty  in 
piteous  wreck,  by  sweet  tenderness  of  voice, 
and  by  rapid  alternations  of  tender  and 
lightsome  mood  she  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion. The  Inconstant  is  one  of  those  fan- 
ciful pieces  that  are  entitled  to  be  viewed 
through  a  haze  of  unreality,  which  makes 
ideal  pictures  grateful  to  the  mind  and 
which  allows  an  innocent  forgetfulness  of 
the  moralities. 


LONGFELLOW.  261 


XVIII. 


LOXGFELLOW. 


THE  death  of  Longfellow  comes  home  to 
hundreds  of  hearts  with  a  sense  of 
personal  loss  and  bereavement.  The  lova- 
ble quality  in  his  writings,  which  was  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  reflex  of  the  gen- 
tleness of  his  nature,  had  endeared  him 
not  less  as  a  man  than  as  a  poet.  To  read 
him  was  to  know  him,  and,  as  Halleck 
said  of  Drake,  to  know  him  was  to  love 
him  ;  so  that  his  readers  were  his  affection- 
ate friends.  The  reading  of  Longfellow  is 
like  sitting  by  the  fireside  of  a  sympathetic 
and  cherished  companion.  The  atmosphere 
of  hLs  works  has  the  refinement  and  elegance 
of  a  sumptuous,  well-ordered  librarj^ ;  but 
also  it  has  the  soft  tranquillity  and  smiling 
contentment  of  a  happy  home. 
To  any  one  who  ever  was  privileged  to 

1  The   poet   Longfellow  died  on  March  24,  1882. 
This  paper  was  first  published  at  that  tirue. 


262  LONGFELLOW. 

sit  by  the  fireside  of  the  poet,  the  thought 
of  his  death  is  almost  inconceivable,  and 
it  brings  an  overwhelming  solemnity.  No 
man  ever  diffused  a  more  radiant  influence 
of  life,  cheerfulness,  and  vigorous  hope 
than  Longfellow  did,  beneath  his  own 
roof.  He  was  not,  indeed,  a  demonstrative 
person  ;  he  did  not  overflow  with  effusion 
or  cover  by  a  boisterous  heartiness  the  ab- 
sence of  a  sincere  welcome.  But  he  never 
failed  to  do  the  right  thing  in  the  right  way, 
or  to  say  the  right  word  at  the  right  time. 
He  was  thoughtful  for  every  one  who  ap- 
proached him.  He  knew  by  uneiTing  intui- 
tion the  ways  of  true  grace  —  which  flow 
out  of  true  kindness.  He  was  entirely  frank 
and  simple,  bearing  himself  always  with 
gentle  dignity  and  speaking  always  with  a 
sweetness  that  was  inexpressibly  winning. 
With  youth  in  particular  he  had  a  profound 
and  comprehensive  sympathy.  He  under- 
stood all  its  ardours  and  aspirations,  its 
perplexity  in  presence  of  the  mysteries  of 
life,  its  embarrassment  amid  unfamiliar 
surroundings,  its  craving  for  recognition, 
its  sensitive  heart,  and  its  dream-like  spirit. 
''  The  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long 
thoughts."  To  the  last  day  of  his  life  he 
carried  that  mood  of  youth  ;  and  no  one 


LOXGFELLOAV.  263 

ever  heard  from  his  lips  a  word  of  satire  or 
discouragement.  His  first  and  greatest  im- 
pulse was  sympathy.  In  domestic  life  this 
displayed  itself  in  a  constant,  unobtrusive 
solicitude  for  the  comfort  of  those  around 
him,  and  in  a  thousand  courtesies  that 
equally  adorned  his  conduct  and  comforted 
his  associates.  In  his  writings  it  is  the 
lambent  flame  of  everj-  page. 

Yet  there  was  no  element  of  insipidity  in 
his  character.  If  he  preferred  always  to 
see  the  most  agreeable  side  and  to  speak 
always  the  most  agreeable  word  it  was  not 
that  he  was  blind  to  defects,  or  assiduous 
to  please,  or  insincere,  or  acquisitive  of 
popularity.  When  occasion  required  it 
he  spoke  his  convictions,  whether  accept- 
able or  other'v^ise,  fully  and  firmly,  and  he 
could  rebuke  injustice  or  ill-breeding  with  a 
cool  censure  that  was  all  the  more  implac- 
able for  its  calmness  and  reserve.  He 
never  obtruded  his  scholarship,  but  if  the 
drift  of  conversation  carried  him  that  way 
he  tinted  his  discourse  with  many  a  shining 
ray  of  knowledge  and  many  a  coloured  flash 
of  anecdote,  with  citations  from  a  wide 
range  of  books,  and  with  a  peculiar,  dry, 
half-veiled  drollery  that  was  kindly,  mis- 
chievous,   and    delightfully  pungent.     His 


264  LONGFELLOW. 

tolerance  was  neither  a  weakness  nor  an 
artifice  ;  it  was  the  outgrowth  of  constitu- 
tional charity  and  tenderness  toward  that 
human  nature  of  which  he  possessed  so 
much  and  which  he  knew  so  well. 

Those  who  remember  him  in  early  years 
say  that  he  was  remarkable  for  personal 
beauty  and  for  the  order  and  refinement  of 
his  life  and  manners.  From  the  first  he 
seems  to  have  possessed  the  composure  of 
high  poetic  genius.  Those  who  think  that 
he  was  passionless  and  that  he  knew  little 
or  nothing  of  tragedy  must  have  read  to 
but  little  purpose  such  poems  as  The  Goblet 
of  Life,  The  Light  of  Stars,  or  the  closing 
chapters  of  Hyperion.  Even  his  familiar 
ballad  of  The  Bridge  is  eloquent  of  a  pro- 
found knowledge  of  grief ;  and  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  our  language  contains  a 
more  absolute  poetic  note  of  anguish  and 
fortitude  —  when  one  considers  its  bleak 
isolation  and  its  mournful  significance  — 
than  his  lines  called  Weariness.  He  was 
not  a  Byron.  His  poetry  is  not  the  poetry 
of  storm  and  stress.  The  "  banner,  torn 
but  flying,"  that  "streams  like  a  thunder- 
storm against  the  wind,"  is  nowhere  un- 
furled in  all  his  writings.  But  if  he  did  not 
utter  the  conflict  he   clearly  and  eweetly 


LOXGJ^ELLOW.  265 

Uttered  the  consciousness  of  it  and  the 
grand  clarion  note  of  patience  and  conquest. 
Of  the  trials  and  cares  that  are  common  to 
humanity  and  that  can  be  named  and  known 
he  had  his  share  ;  but  also  he  had  the  ex- 
perience which  the  poetic  nature  invariably 
and  inevitably  draws  upon  itself.  He  had 
felt  all  that  Burns  felt,  in  writmg  To  Mary 
in  Heaven.  He  had  felt  all  that  Goethe 
felt,  in  writing  that  wonderful  passage  of 
Faust  which  ends  with  the  curse  on  pa- 
tience as  the  worst  of  human  afflictions. 
But  he  would  suffer  no  shock  of  sorrow  to 
turn  his  life  into  a  delirium.  He  would 
meet  every  trouble  as  a  man  ought  to  meet 
it  who  believes  in  the  immortal  destiny  of 
the  human  soul.  AVhen  he  lost,  under  cir- 
cumstances so  pathetic  and  tragical  (1861), 
the  wife  whom  he  so  entirely  loved  (that 
beautiful  and  stately  lady,  whom  to  remem- 
ber is  to  wonder  that  so  much  loveliness 
and  worth  could  take  a  mortal  shape) ,  he 
took  the  terrible  anguish  mto  the  silent 
chambers  of  his  heart,  he  bore  it  with  un- 
flinching, uncomplaining  fortitude  ;  and 
from  that  day  onward  no  reader  of  his 
writings  was  visited  with  one  repining  mur- 
mur, one  plea  for  sympathy,  one  wail  of 
personal  loneliness  or  despondency  or  mis- 


266  LONGFELLOW. 

anthropical  bitterness.  All  that  was  ever 
shown  of  that  misery  was  the  simple  gran- 
deur of  endurance  combined  with  even  a 
more  wistful  and  readier  and  deeper  sym- 
pathy with  the  sorrows  of  mankind. 

There  are  poets,  and  good  ones  too,  who 
seem  never  to  get  beyond  the  necessity  of 
utterance  for  their  own  sake.  Longfellow 
was  not  an. egotist.  He  thought  of  others; 
and  the  permanent  value  of  his  writings 
consists  in  this  — that  he  helped  to  utter  the 
emotions  of  the  universal  human  heart.  It 
is  when  a  writer  speaks  for  us  what  were 
else  unspoken  —  setting  our  minds  free  and 
giving  us  strength  to  meet  the  cares  of  life 
and  the  hour  of  death  —  that  he  first  be- 
comes of  real  value.  Longfellow  has  done 
this  for  thousands  of  human  beings,  and 
done  it  in  that  language  of  perfect  simplic- 
ity—  never  bald,  never  insipid,  never  fail- 
ing to  exalt  the  subject  —  which  is  at  once 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  difficult  of 
all  the  elements  of  literature.  And  the 
high  thoughts  and  tender  feelings  that  he 
has  thus  spoken,  the  limpid,  soft,  and  tran- 
quil strain  of  his  music  —  breathing  out  so 
truly  our  home  loves,  our  tender  longing  for 
those  that  are  dead  and  gone,  the  trust  that 
we  all  would  cherish  in  a  happy  future  be- 


LONGFELLOW.  267 

yond  the  grave,  the  purpose  to  work  nobly 
and  endure  bravely  while  we  live  —  will 
sound  on  in  the  ears  of  the  world,  long 
after  every  hand  and  heart  that  honours 
him  or  grieves  for  him  now  is  mouldering  in 
the  dust. 

The  least  of  us  who  have  recollections  of 
Longfellow  may  venture  to  add  them  to 
the  general  stock  of  knowledge,  without 
incurring  the  reproach  of  intriLsiveness. 
I  saw  him  often,  long  before  I  was  hon- 
oured with  his  personal  acquaintance  ;  and 
I  observed  him  closely  —  as  a  youth  nat- 
urally observes  the  object  of  his  honest 
admiration.  His  dignity  and  grace  and 
the  beautiful  refinement  of  his  counte- 
nance, together  with  his  perfect  taste  in 
dress  and  the  exquisite  simplicity  of  his 
manners,  made  him  the  ideal  of  what  a  poet 
should  be.  His  voice  was  soft,  sweet,  and 
musical,  and,  like  his  face,  it  had  the  innate 
charm  of  tranquillity.  His  eyes  were  blue- 
gray,  very  bright  and  brave,  changeable 
under  the  influence  of  emotion  (as,  after- 
ward, I  often  saw),  but  mostly  calm,  atten 
tive,  and  gentle.  The  habitual  expression 
of  his  face  was  not  that  of  sadness ;  yet  it 
was  pensive.  Perhaps  it  may  be  best  de- 
scribed   as    that    of    serious    and    tender 


268  LONGFELLOW. 

thoughtfuliiess.  He  had  conquered  his  own 
sorrows,  thus  far,  but  the  sorrows  of  others 
threw  tlieir  shadow  over  him  —  as  he 
sweetly  and  humanly  says  in  his  pathetic 
ballad  of  The  Bridge. 

It  was  in  April  1854  that  I  became  per- 
sonally  acquainted  with  Longfellow,  and  he 
was  the  first  literary*  friend  I  ever  had- 
greeting  me  as  a  yoimg  aspirant  in  litera- 
ture and  holding  out  to  me  the  hand  of  fel- 
lowship and  encouragement.  He  allowed 
me  to  dedicate  to  him  a  volume  of  my 
verses,  published  in  that  year,  being  the 
first  of  my  ventures.  They  were  juvenile, 
crude  verses  ;  yet  he  was  tolerant  of  them, 
because  he  knew  that  sincerity  of  heart  and 
ambition  of  spirit  lay  beneath  them,  and, 
in  his  far-reaching  charity  and  prescience, 
he  must  have  thought  that  something  good 
might  come  of  even  such  a  poor  beginning. 
At  all  events,  where  others  were  cold,  or 
satirical,  or  contemptuous,  he  was  kind, 
cordial,  and  full  of  cheer.  A  few  words  in 
commendation  of  the  book  had  been  writ- 
ten by  N.  P.  Willis  and  the  paragi'aph  hap- 
pened to  come  in  his  way.  He  was  pleased 
with  it,  and  I  can  hear  now  the  earnest  tone 
in  which  he  spoke  of  it,  turning  to  Mrs. 
Longfellow,  who  was  present,  and  saying, 


LONGFELLOW.  269 

with  an  ob^ious  relish  of  good- will :  ' '  There 
is  much  kindness  in  Willis's  nature." 
This  was  a  slight  trait,  but  it  is  of  little 
traits  that  the  greatest  human  character  is 
composed.  Goodness,  generosity,  and  a 
large  liberality  of  judgment  were,  in  his 
character,  conspicuous  elements.  His  spon- 
taneous desire  —  the  natural  instinct  of  his 
great  heart  and  philosophic  mind — was 
to  be  helpful :  to  lift  up  the  lowly ;  to 
strengthen  the  weak ;  to  develop  the  best 
in  every  person ;  to  dry  every  tear  and 
make  every  pathway  smooth.  It  is  saying 
but  little  to  say  that  he  never  spoke  a  harsh 
word  except  against  injustice  and  wrong. 
He  was  the  natural  friend  and  earnest  ad- 
vocate of  every  good  cause  and  right  idea. 
His  words  about  the  absent  were  always 
considerate  and  he  never  lost  a  practical 
opportunity  of  doing  good. 

For  the  infirmities  of  humanity  he  was 
charity  itself  and  he  shrank  from  harshness 
as  from  a  positive  sin.  "It  is  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  poet,"  he  once  said  to  me,  in 
those  old  days,  "  to  give  pleasure  ;  but  it  is 
the  critic's  province  to  give  pain."  He 
had,  indeed,  but  a  slender  esteem  for  the 
critic's  province.  Yet  his  tolerant  nature 
found  excuses  for  even  as  virulent  and  hos- 


270  LONGFELLOW. 

tile  a  critic  as  his  assailant  and  traducer 
Edgar  Poe  —  of  whom  I  have  heard  him 
speak  with  genuine  pity.  His  words  were 
few  and  unobtrusive  and  they  clearly  hi- 
dicated  his  consciousness  that  Poe  had 
abused  and  maligned  him ;  but  instead  of 
resentment  for  injury  they  displayed  oidy 
sorrow  for  an  unfortunate,  distempered 
adversary.  There  was  a  volume  of  Poe's 
poems,  an  P^nglish  edition,  on  the  library 
table,  and  at  sight  of  this  I  was  prompted 
to  ask  Longfellow  if  Poe  had  ever  person- 
ally met  him — "because,"  I  said,  "if  he 
had  known  you  it  is  impossible  he  could 
have  written  about  you  in  such  a  manner." 
He  answered  that  he  had  never  seen  Poe, 
and  that  the  bitterness  was,  doubtless,  due 
to  a  deplorable  literary  jealousy.  Then, 
after  a  pause  of  musing,  he  added,  very 
gravely:  "My  works  seemed  to  give  him 
much  trouble,  first  and  last ;  but  Mr.  Poe 
is  dead  and  gone  and  I  am  alive  and  still 
writing  —  and  that  is  the  end  of  the  matter. 
I  never  condescended  to  answer  INIr.  IMe's 
attacks ;  and  I  would  advise  you  now,  at 
the  outset  of  your  literary  life,  never  to 
take  notice  of  any  attacks  that  may  be 
made  upon  you.  Let  them  all  pass."  He 
then  took  up  the  volume  of  Poe,  and,  turn- 


LONGFELLOW.  2/1 

ing  the  leaves,  particularly  commended  the 
stanzas  entitled  For  Annie  and  The 
Haunted  Palace.  Then,  still  speaking  of 
criticism,  he  mentioned  the  great  number 
of  newspaper  and  magazine  articles,  about 
his  own  writings,  that  were  received  by 
him  —  sent,  apparently,  by  their  writers. 
'•I  look  at  the  first  few  lines,"  he  said, 
^ '  and  if  I  find  that  the  article  has  been 
written  in  a  pleasant  spirit,  I  read  it 
through  ;  but  if  I  find  that  the  intention  is 
to  wound,  I  drop  the  paper  into  my  fh-e, 
and  so  dismiss  it.  In  that  way  one  escapes 
much  annoyance."' 

Longfellow  liked  to  talk  of  young  poets, 
and  he  had  an  equally  humorous  and  kind 
way  of  noticing  the  foibles  of  the  literary 
character.  Standing  in  the  porch,  one  sum- 
mer day,  and  observing  the  elms  m  front  of 
his  house,  he  recalled  a  visit  made  to  him, 
long  before,  by  one  of  the  many  bards,  now 
extinct,  who  are  embalmed  in  Griswold. 
Then  suddenly  assuming  a  burly,  martial 
air,  he  seemed  to  reproduce  the  exact  figure 
and  manner  of  the  youthful  enthusiast  — 
who  had  tossed  back  his  long  hair,  gazed 
approvingly  on  the  elms,  and  in  a  deep 
voice  exclaimed,  ''I  see,  Mr.  Longfellow, 
that  you  have  many  trees  —  I  love  trees  ! ! " 


272  LONGFELLOW. 

"It  was,"  said  the  poet,  "  as  if  he  gave  a 
certificate  to  all  the  neighbouring  vegeta- 
tion." A  few  words  like  these,  said  in 
Longfellow's  peculiar,  dry,  humorous  man- 
ner, with  a  twinkle  of  the  eye  and  a  droll 
inflection  of  the  voice,  had  a  charm  of 
mirth  that  was  delightful.  It  was  that 
same  demure  playfulness  which  led  him 
to  write  of  the  lady  who  wore  flowers 
"on  the  congregation  side  of  her  bonnet," 
or  to  extol  those  broad,  magnificent  west- 
ern roads  which  ' '  dwindle  to  a  squirrel- 
track  and  run  up  a  tree."  He  had  no 
particle  of  the  acidity  of  biting  wit ;  but  he 
had  abundant,  playful  humour,  that  was 
full  of  kindness  and  that  toyed  good- 
naturedly  with  the  trifles  of  life.  That 
such  a  sense  of  fun  should  be  amused  by 
the  ludicrous  peculiarities  of  a  juvenile  bard 
was  inevitable. 

I  recall  many  talks  with  him,  about 
poetry,  the  avenues  of  literary  labour,  and 
the  discipline  of  the  mind  in  youth.  His 
counsel  was  conveyed  in  two  words  —  calm- 
ness and  patience.  He  did  not  believe  in 
seeking  experience  or  in  going  to  meet  bur- 
dens. "  What  you  desire  will  come,  if  you 
will  but  wait  for  it"  — that  he  said  to  me 
again  and  again.    "  My  ambition  once  was," 


LONGFELLOW.  273 

he  remarked,  "to  edit  a  magazine.  Since 
then  the  opportunity  has  been  offered  to 
me  many  times  —  and  I  did  not  take  it,  and 
would  not."  That  same  night  he  spoke  of 
his  first  poem  —  the  first  that  ever  was 
printed  —  and  described  his  trepidation 
when  going,  in  the  evening,  to  drop  the 
precious  manuscript  into  the  editor's  box. 
This  was  at  a  newspaper  office  in  Portland, 
Maine,  when  he  was  a  boy.  Publication 
day  arrived  and  the  paper  appeared  —  but 
not  a  word  of  the  poem.  "  But  I  had  an- 
other copy,"  he  said,  "and  I  immediately 
sent  it  to  the  rival  paper,  and  it  was  pub- 
lished." And  then  he  described  his  exul- 
tation and  inexpressible  joy  and  pride, 
when,  —  having  bought  a  copy  of  the  paper, 
still  damp  from  the  press,  and  walked  with 
it  into  a  by-street  of  the  town, — he  saw, 
for  the  first  time,  a  poem  of  his  own  act- 
ually in  print!  "I  have  never  since  had 
such  a  thrill  of  delight,"  he  said,  "  over 
any  of  my  publications." 

His  sense  of  humour  found  especial 
pleasure  in  the  inappropriate  words  that 
were  sometimes  said  to  him  by  persons 
whose  design  it  was  to  be  complimentary, 
and  he  would  relate,  with  a  keen  relish  of 
their   pleasantry,    anecdotes,    to    illustrate 


274  LONGFELLOW. 

this  form  of  social  blunder.  Years  ago  he 
told  me,  at  Cambridge,  about  a  strange  gen- 
tleman who  was  led  up  to  him  and  intro- 
duced, at  Newport,  and  who  straightway 
said,  with  enthusiastic  fervour,  —  "Mr. 
Longfellow,  I  have  long  desired  the  honour 
of  knowing  you  !  Sir,  I  am  one  of  the  few 
men  who  have  read  your  Evangeline.'''' 
Another  of  his  favourites  was  related  to  me 
a  day  or  two  after  it  occurred.  The  writer's 
rule  was  to  reserve  the  morning  for  work, 
and  visitors  were  not  received  before  noon. 
One  morning  a  man  forced  his  way  past 
the  servant  who  had  opened  the  hall-door, 
and,  going  into  the  presence  of  the  as- 
tonished author,  in  his  library,  addressed 
him  in  the  following  remarkable  words  : 
"Mr.  Longfellow,  you're  a  poet,  I  believe, 
and  I've  called  here  to  see  if  I  couldn't  git 
you  to  write  some  poetiy,  for  me  to  have 
printed,  and  stuck  onto  my  medicine  bot- 
tles. You  see,  I  go  round  sellin'  this  medi- 
cine, and  if  you  give  me  the  poetry  I'll  give 
you  a  bottle  of  the  carminative  —  and  it's 
one  dollar  a  bottle."  For  the  enjoyment 
of  that  story  it  was  needful  to  see  the 
poet's  face  and  hear  the  bland  tone  of  his 
voice.  Many  years  ago  he  told  me  that 
incident  —  sitting  by  the  wide  fire-place  in 


LONGFELLOW.  275 

the  library  back  of  his  study.  As  I  write 
his  words  now  the  wind  seems  again  to  be 
moaning  in  the  chimney  and  the  fire-Hght 
flickers  upon  his  pale,  handsome,  happy 
face,  and  already  silvered  hair.  He  took 
delight  in  any  bit  of  fun  like  that.  He  was 
always  gracious,  always  kind,  always  wish- 
ful to  make  every  one  happy  that  came 
near  him. 

About  poetry  he  talked  with  the  earnest- 
ness of  a  genuine  passion  and  yet  with 
no  particle  of  self-assertion.  Tennyson's 
Pnncess  was  a  new  book  when  first  I 
heard  him  speak  of  it,  and  I  remember 
Mrs.  Longfellow  sitting  with  that  volume  in 
her  hands  and  reading  it  by  the  evening 
lamp.  The  delicate  loveliness  of  the  lyrical 
pieces  that  are  interspersed  throughout  its 
text  was,  in  particular,  dwelt  upon  as  a 
supreme  merit.  Among  his  own  poems  his 
favourite  at  that  time  was  Evangeline  ;  but 
he  said  that  the  style  of  versification  which 
pleased  him  best  was  that  of  The  Day  is 
Done  '  nor  do  I  wonder,  reading  this  now, 
together  with  The  Bridge,  Tidlight,  The 
ChiW.ren^s  Hour,  and  The  Open  Windoic, 
and  finding  them  so  exquisite  both  in  pathos 
and  music.  He  said  also  that  he  sometimes 
wrote  poems  that  were  for  himself  alone, 


276  LONGFELLOW. 

that  he  should  not  care  to  publish,  be- 
cause they  were  too  delicate  for  publica- 
tion. One  of  his  sayings  was  that  "the 
desire  of  the  young  poet  is  not  for  ap- 
plause but  for  recognition."  He  much 
commended  the  example,  in  one  respect, 
of  the  Italian  poet  Alfieri,  who  caused 
himself  to  be  bound  into  his  library  chair 
and  left  for  a  certain  period  of  time,  each 
day,  at  his  library  table  —  his  servants 
being  strictly  enjoined  not  to  release  him 
till  that  time  had  passed  :  by  this  means  he 
forced  himself  to  labour.  Xo  man  ever 
believed  more  firmly  than  Longfellow  did 
in  regular,  proportioned,  resolute,  incessant 
industry.  His  poem  of  The  Builders  con- 
tains his  creed  ;  his  poem  of  The  Ladder  of 
St.  Augustine  is  the  philosophy  of  his  career. 
Yet  I  have  many  times  heard  him  say  "the 
mind  cannot  be  controlled"  ;  and  the  fact 
that  he  was,  when  at  his  best,  a  poet  of  in- 
spiration is  proved  by  such  poems  as  Sandal- 
phon,  My  Lost  Youth,  The  Beleaguered 
City,  The  Fire  of  Drift  Wood,  Suspina, 
The  Secret  of  the  Sea,  The  Tivo  Angels, 
and  The  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports. 

The  two  writers  of  whom  he  oftenest 
spoke,  within  my  hearing,  were  Lowell 
and  Hawthorne.    Of  Lowell  he  said,  "He 


LONGFELLOW.  277 

is  one  of  the  manliest  and  noblest  men 
that  ever  lived."  "  Hawthorne  often  came 
into  this  room,"  he  said,  "  and  sometimes 
he  would  go  there,  behind  the  window  cur- 
tains, and  remain  in  silent  reverie  the  whole 
evening.  Xo  one  disturbed  him ;  he  came 
and  went  as  he  liked.  He  was  a  mysteri- 
ous man."  With  Irving's  works  he  was 
especially  familiar,  and  he  often  quoted 
from  them  in  his  talk  to  me.  One  summer 
day  at  his  cottage  at  Xahant  I  found  him 
reading  Cooper's  sea  stories,  and  had  the 
pleasure  of  hearing  from  his  lips  a  tribute 
to  that  great  -^Titer  —  the  foremost  novelist 
in  American  literature,  unmatched  since 
Scott  in  the  power  to  treat  with  a  free 
inspiration  and  vigorous  and  splendid  de- 
scriptive skill  the  vast  pageants  of  nature 
and  to  build  and  sustain  ideals  of  human 
character  worthy  of  such  surromidings. 
Longfellow  was  in  fine  spirits  that  day,  and 
very  happy,  and  I  have  always  thought  of 
him  as  he  looked  then,  holding  his  daughter 
Edith  in  his  arms  —  a  little  child,  with 
long,  golden  hair,  and  lovely,  merry  face  — 
and  by  his  presence  making  the  sunshine 
brighter  and  the  place  more  sacred  with 
kindness  and  peace. 
The  best  portrait  of  Longfellow  is  the  one 


278  LONGFELLOW. 

made  by  Samuel  Lawrence ;  the  best  be- 
cause it  gives  the  noble  and  spirited  poise 
and  action  of  his  head,  shows  his  clear-cut, 
strong,  yet  delicate  features  unmasked  with 
a  beard,  and  preserves  that  alert,  inspired 
expression  which  came  into  his  face  when 
he  was  affected  by  strong  emotion.  I  recall 
Mrs.  Longfellow's  commendation  of  it.  in  a 
fireside  talk.  It  was  her  favourite  portrait 
of  him.  We  discussed  Thomas  Buchanan 
Read's  portrait  of  him,  and  of  his  three 
daughters,  when  those  pictures  were  yet 
fresh  from  the  easel.  I  remember  speaking 
to  him  of  a  fancied  resemblance  between 
the  face  of  Mrs.  Longfellow  and  the  face  of 
Evangeline,  in  Faed's  well-known  picture. 
He  said  that  others  had  noticed  it  but  that 
he  did  not  perceive  it.  Yet  I  think  those 
faces  were  kindred,  in  stateliness  and  in  the 
mournful  beauty  of  the  eyes.  It  is  strange 
what  trifles  crowd  upon  the  meniory,  when 
one  thinks  of  the  long  ago  and  the  friends 
that  have  departed.  I  recollect  his  smile 
when  he  said  that  he  always  called  to  mind 
the  number  of  the  house  in  Beacon  street, 
Boston, — which  was  Mrs,  Longfellow's 
home  when  she  was  INIiss  ApjDletou,  —  "by 
thinking  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles."  I 
recollect  the  gentle  gravity  of  his  voice  when 


LONGFELLOW.  279 

he  showed  me  a  piece  of  the  coffin  of  Dante, 
and  said,  in  a  low  tone,  "  That  has  touched 
his  bones."  I  recollect  the  benignant  look 
in  his  eyes  and  the  warm  pressure  of  his 
hand  when  he  bade  me  good-bye  (it  was  the 
last  time),  saying,  '•  You  never  forget  me  — 
you  always  come  to  see  me."  There  were 
long  lapses  of  time  during  which  I  never 
saw  him,  being  held  fast  by  incessant  duties 
and  drifted  far  away  from  the  moorings  of 
my  youth.  But  as  often  as  I  came  back  to 
his  door  his  love  met  me  on  the  threshold 
and  his  noble  serenity  gave  me  comfort  and 
cheer.  It  seems  but  a  little  while  since,  in 
quick  and  delicate  remembrance  of  the  old 
days,  he  led  me  to  his  hearthstone,  saying, 
"Come  and  sit  in  my  children's  chair." 
What  an  awful  solemnity,  and  yet  what  a 
soothing  sense  of  perfect  nobleness  and 
beneficent  love,  hallows  now  that  storied 
home  from  which  his  earthly  and  \isible 
presence  has  forever  departed  ! 

In  the  summer  of  1861,  on  a  day  of  sun- 
shine and  flowers  and  gently  whispering 
winds,  those  rooms  were  hushed  and  dark- 
ened, and  a  gToup  of  mourning  friends 
stood  around  the  sacred  relics,  beautiful  in 
death,  of  the  poet's  wife.  Only  one  voice 
was    heard  —  the    voice    of    prayer.     But 


280  LONGFELLOW. 

every  heart  prayed  for  the  sufferer,  thus 
awfully  stricken  and  left  to  hear  the  bur- 
den of  a  great  and  endless  grief.  And  then 
we  followed  her  to  the  place  of  her  final 
rest.  Here  before  me  is  a  twig  that  I  broke, 
that  day,  from  a  tree  beside  her  grave.  I 
may  keep  it  now  in  remembrance  of  him 
as  well  as  of  her.  He  fulfilled,  within  the 
twenty  years  following,  some  of  the  greatest 
works  of  his  life ;  but  in  all  that  time  he 
was  only  waiting  for  the  hour  which  came 
to  him  at  last.  Through  all  the  grand 
poise  of  his  being,  through  his  never-end- 
ing still  beginning  labour,  through  his  pen- 
sive ways  neither  mournful  nor  gay,  through 
his  meek  but  manly  acceptance  of  the 
events  of  life,  through  the  high  and  solemn 
strains  of  his  later  poetry,  and  through 
that  wistful,  haunted  look  in  his  venerable, 
bard-like  countenance,  this  was  the  one 
prevailing  truth.  He  was  waiting  for  the 
end.  The  world  is  lonelier  for  his  absence. 
' '  Woe  is  me,  that  I  should  gaze  upon  thy 
place  and  find  it  vacant !  " 

"  O  friend  !     O  best  of  friends  !    Thy  absence 
more 
Than  the  impending  night  darkens  the  land- 
scape o'er!  " 


A  THOUGHT  ON  COOPER'S  NOVELS.      281 


XIX. 

A  THOUGHT  OX  COOPER's  NOVELS. 

THE  inherent  spiritual  charms  appertain- 
ing to  different  forms  of  art  are  not  in- 
terchangeable. The  best  Grecians  are  agreed 
that  something  yet  remains  in  Homer  that 
translation  has  never  grasped.  The  char- 
acteristic magic  of  a  romance  will  not  im- 
part its  thrill  to  a  drama.  Those  who,  for 
example,  should  expect  in  a  play,  a  re- 
production of  the  soul  of  Cooper's  genius 
would  inevitably  be  disappointed.  Certain 
dramatic  elements  his  genius  and  hLs  stories 
do,  indeed,  possess  ;  but  the  essential  qual- 
ity of  them  is  an  evanescent  spirit  of  romance 
that  can  no  more  be  cramped  witliin  stage- 
grooves  than  the  notes  of  a  wind-harp  can  be 
prisoned  in  a  bird-cage.  Often,  when  Cooper 
is  imaginative,  his  mind  revels  over  vast 
spaces,  alike  in  the  trackless  wilderness 
and  on  the  trackless  ocean  —  forests  that 
darken  half  a  continent  and  tremendous 
icebergs  that  crash  and  crumble  upon  un- 


282   A  THOUGHT  OX  COOPER's  NOVELS. 

known  seas.  More  often  he  is  descriptive 
and  meditative,  moralising,  like  Words- 
worth, on  rock  and  river  and  the  tokens  of 
a  divine  soul  in  the  wonders  of  creation. 
His  highest  mood  of  feeling  is  that  of  calm- 
eyed  philosophy.  His  highest  ideal  of  vir- 
tue is  self-sacrifice.  His  best  pictures  are 
too  broad  in  scope  and  too  voluminovis  in 
details  for  illustration  to  the  eye.  Neither 
Jasper's  white-winged  descent  upon  the 
Indian  ambuscade,  nor  the  flight  of  Hutter's 
ark,  nor  Chingachgook  singing  his  death- 
song,  nor  the  mysterious  Pilot  steering  his 
ship,  in  night  and  tempest,  through  a  per- 
ilous channel  and  a  thousand  dangers 
of  death,  could  be  shown  in  effigy.  His 
highest  figures,  moreover,  are  types  of  the 
action  that  passes  within  the  heart ;  of  pas- 
sion that  is  repressed ;  of  what  is  suffered 
rather  than  of  what  is  done.  He  never 
painted  better  than  when  he  painted  the 
Pathfinder  vanishing  on  the  dusky  edge  of 
the  forest,  after  the  parting  with  Mabel ; 
and  in  that  lovely,  pathetic  incident,  as  in 
many  that  are  kindred  with  it,  there  is  no 
particle  of  dramatic  effect.  Salient  features 
are  alone  available  for  the  purpose  of  the 
drama,  and  it  is  not  in  salient  features  that 
the  spell  of  Cooper's  genius  resides.     The 


A  THOUGHT  ON  COOPER's  NOVELS.   283 

essence  of  his  novels  —  the  wildwood  fra- 
grance of  fancy  and  the  reiterated  yet  con- 
stantly varied  mood  of  suspense  —  eludes 
dramatic  treatment.  The  reader  is  con- 
stantly aware  of  this  charm  ;  never  so  much 
aware  of  it,  perhaps,  as  in  that  ahsorbmg 
chapter  of  the  Mohicans  which  describes 
the  beginning  of  ]Munro's  quest  of  his 
daughters,  after  the  massacre.  The  spec- 
tator of  a  play  on  the  subject  would  not  be 
aware  of  it  at  all.  He  might  be  interested, 
indeed,  and  at  times  excited  and  impressed ; 
but  he  would  no  longer  be  ruled  by  the  mas- 
sive sincerity  of  Cooper's  feeling  and  the 
honest,  minute  thoroughness  of  his  simple 
text,  and  he  would  be  no  longer  swayed  by 
his  own  imagination.  In  the  silence  of  the 
library  the  reader  may  listen  with  Hawkeye 
for  the  rustle  of  a  leaf,  or  the  crackling  of 
a  twig,  or  the  lonesome  call  of  the  loon  across 
the  darkening  lake  at  sunset.  In  the  glare 
of  lamps,  and  when  neither  the  situation 
nor  the  language  is  ideal,  the  spectator 
would  perceive  his  vision  limited  by  the 
picture  before  him ;  the  inward  ear  would 
close  and  the  inward  eye  would  darken.  It 
is  the  nature  of  some  books  that  they  lure 
us  into  a  dream  of  pleasure  and  keep  us 
there  ;  and  it  is  the  nature  of  some  pictures 


284      A  THOUGHT  ON  COOPER's  NOVELS. 

that  they  confront  fancy  with  fact  and  stop 
our  dreaming  with  a  shock.  Nothing  in 
Cooper's  delineation  of  wilderness  life 
seems  incongruous  or  absurd  to  a  reader. 
His  books  have  an  atmosphere  —  like  the 
odour  of  pine  trees  on  the  wind  of  night  — 
and  this  the  stage  could  not  preserve.  They 
were  not  written  for  it  and  they  cannot  be 
fitted  to  its  powers  and  its  needs.  They 
will  yield  romantic  pictures,  effective  inci- 
dents, and  various  and  picturesque  charac- 
ters ;  but  they  will  not  yield  their  glamour. 
The  poet  who  brought  home  the  sea-shells 
found  that  they  had  left  their  beauty  on  the 
beach. 


JOHN    K.    G.    HASSARD.  285 


XX. 

A    MAX    OF    LETTERS  :    JOHN    R.  G.  HASSARD. 
Obiit  April  18,  1888. 

A  PATIENT  and  noble  struggle  against 
inexorable  disease  lias  ended,  and  a 
friend  and  comrade  —  dearer  than  words 
can  say  —  has  fallen  asleep.  The  duty  of 
recording  his  death  falls  naturally  upon  one 
who  for  many  years  stood  nearest  his  side 
and  was  honoured  with  his  affection  and 
confidence.  It  would,  under  any  circum- 
stances, be  a  difficult,  mournful  duty.  It 
is  inexpressibly  solemn  to  the  friend  who 
writes  these  words  —  for  not  alone  is  it  fit- 
ting that  love  should  utter  its  sense  of  be- 
reavement, but  that  thought  should  express 
its  conviction  of  public  no  less  than  personal 
loss. 

John  Hassard  was  a  journalist,  but  also 
he  was  a  man  of  letters,  and  in  both  capaci- 
ties he  exerted  eminent  talents  in  a  consci- 
entious spirit  and  with  passionate  loyalty 
to  the  highest  standard  of  principle,  learn- 


286  A  MAN  OF  lp:tteks  : 

ing,  and  taste.  As  a  journalist  he  knew 
that  the  most  essential  function  of  the  news- 
paper is  the  presentation  of  the  news  ;  but 
as  a  man  of  letters  he  was  aware  that  the 
pictorial  facts  and  the  facts  of  thought  and 
feeling  are  not  less  actual  or  less  important 
than  the  superficial  aspects  of  the  passing 
hour.  He  treated  many  subjects,  ranging 
over  a  period  of  many  years  during  which 
he  was  in  continuous  service  of  the  press 
and  writing  in  the  different  veins  of  narra- 
tive, description,  criticism,  satire,  and  des- 
ultory comment ;  but  whatever  the  subject 
he  never  failed  to  satisfy  his  readers  that 
every  material  fact  had  been  stated  and  to 
impress  their  minds  with  his  absolute  sin- 
cerity, his  breadth  of  view,  his  wisdom,  his 
moral  principle,  his  fine  taste,  and  his  noble 
ideal  of  social  order  and  personal  conduct. 
It  was  tha't  double  power,  that  power  of 
presenting  the  picture  of  actual  life  and  at 
the  same  time  of  indicating  its  motive,  its 
spirit,  its  accessories  and  its  meaning,  that 
made  him  an  exceptional  force  in  the  pro- 
fession that  he  dignified  and  adorned. 

A  life  that  is  devoted  to  the  art  of  writ- 
ing seems,  on  its  surface,  to  be  uneventful. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  of  outward  action 
and  but  little   of   visible   deed.       Yet  no 


JOHX    R.    G.    HASSARD.  287 

greater  error  could  possibly  be  made,  iii 
the  study  and  estimate  of  human  character, 
than  the  error  of  assuming  that  the  life  of 
a  true  man  of  letters  is  necessarily  or  pos- 
sibly a  life  of  apathetic  monotony  and  gray 
stagnation.  For  such  a  man  lives,  not  alone 
under  the  pressm^e  of  his  intense  individu- 
ality, but  under  the  stress  and  strain  of  the 
intellectual  movement  of  his  time.  Every 
fresh  wave  of  thought  breaks  over  him. 
Every  aspiration  and  every  forward  step  of 
the  vanguard  mind  of  his  period  is  to  him  a 
pei-sonal  experience  —  because  he  must  keep 
pace  with  it.  The  religious  question,  the 
political  question,  the  social  question,  the 
scientific  question  —  each  and  every  one  of 
these  is  of  vital  personal  importance  to  the 
man  of  letters.  He  cannot  be  content,  as 
so  many  other  people  are,  merely  to  hear 
of  those  things  and  to  pass  them  by ;  he 
must  think  out  the  problems  of  the  age  ;  he 
must  reach  a  conclusion  ;  he  must  have 
convictions  ;  he  must  speak  his  mind.  To 
him  is  forbidden  alike  indifference  and 
silence.  A  moral  and  mental  responsibility 
rests  on  him,  to  serve  his  generation,  to 
proclaim  the  truth  and  defend  the  right,  to 
help  others  at  the  hard  part  of  the  way,  and 
thus  to  fulfil  the  duty  for  which  he  was  de- 


288  A    MAN    OF    LKTTEKS  : 

signed  in  the  drama  of  human  development. 
There  are  serious  ordeals  in  the  life  of  such 
a  man  —  times  of  sore  mental  conflict  and 
cruel  trial,  hours  of  acute  suffering,  moments 
of  splendid  conquest  and  joy.  Outwardly 
he  seems  placid,  and  the  round  of  his  ex- 
istence looks  dull.  But  under  the  calm 
surface  of  that  silver  tranquillity  the  tem- 
pests of  passion  rage  and  pass,  the  powers 
of  character  are  matured  and  marshalled, 
and  the  strife  of  ideas  accomplishes  its  ap- 
pointed work.  The  representative  man  of 
letters  is  not  seen  in  public  affairs,  and  there 
is  but  little  to  tell  of  him  when  his  career 
has  ended.  But  his  words  are  in  thousands 
of  hearts  and  his  influence  lives  m  a  myriad 
of  the  good  deeds  of  the  men  of  action  who 
have  imperceptibly  felt  his  dominion. 

John  Ilassard's  life  afforded  constant  and 
potent  illustration  of  those  views.  It  was 
only  slightly  diversified  by  events,  but  it 
flowed  over  the  depths  of  a  wide,  varied, 
and  significant  intellectual  experience.  He 
was  born  in  New  York,  in  1836.  He  was 
taught  and  trained  in  St.  John's  College  at 
Fordham,  from  which  institution  he  was 
graduated  in  1855.  He  assisted  in  prepar- 
ing the  Xew  American  Encfjdopcedia  and 
in  1805  was  editor  of  7Vie  Catholic  World. 


JOHX    R.    G.    HA8SARD.  289 

111  1865-66  he  was  a  writer  for  The  Chi- 
cago Bepublican.  He  became  associated 
with  The  New  York  Tribune  in  1866,  and 
in  various  capacities  he  served  that  journal 
for  about  twenty  years.  He  was  an  edito- 
rial writer,  a  reviewer,  and  a  musical  critic, 
and  for  some  time  after  the  death  of  Horace 
Greeley,  in  1872,  he  held  the  post  of  manag- 
ing editor.  He  wrote  the  Life  of  Arch- 
bishop Hughes  (1866)  ;  the  Life  of  Pope 
Pius  IX.  (1877)  ;  a  History  of  the  United 
/States  (1877)  ;   The  Ping  of  the  Xibelungs 

—  a  Description  of  its  First  Performance, 
in  August^  1876,  at  Bayrenth  (1877)  ;  and 
A  Pickii'ickian  Pilgrimage  (1881).  He  was 
at  Bayreuth  in  1876,  and  his  narrative  of 
Wagner's  exploits  and  success  at  that  time 

—  a  remarkable  epoch  in  the  history  of 
music  —  is  one  of  fascinating  interest,  and 
it  is  as  vital  now  as  when  it  was  written. 
The  sagacity  with  which  he  recognised 
Wag-ner's  power  and  the  precision  and 
authority  with  which  he  foreshadowed  the 
drift  of  that  composer's  ideas  and  influence 
abide  among  many  proofs  of  his  pre-eminent 
competence  and  superiority  as  a  musical 
judge.  His  Pickwickian  Pilgrimage  was 
the  result  of  a  stroll  in  England,  in  the 
summer  of  1879,  chiefly  in  the  track  of  Pick- 

T 


290  A    MAN    OF    letters: 

wick  and  his  friends.  He  was  an  ardent 
admirer  of  the  works  of  Charles  Dickens, 
and  he  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  that 
novelist  reverently  and  with  affectionate 
appreciation.  That  book  contains  an  ac- 
count of  a  boat  voyage  down  the  Wye, 
from  Hereford  to  Chepstow,  which  is  per- 
haps the  best  single  example  of  his  best 
Uterary  manner  that  could  be  chosen  —  a 
manner  in  which  the  influence  of  Goldsmith 
and  Addison  is  discernible  through  the 
writer's  characteristic  mood  of  keen  obser- 
vation, light,  pictorial  touch,  and  gentle 
sentiment.  Another  of  his  felicitous  works 
is  a  pamphlet  called  The  Fast  Printing 
Machine  (1878),  being  a  narrative  of  me- 
chanical dexterity  and  industrial  achieve- 
ment, but  invested  with  the  charm  of  a 
fairy  tale  and  expressed  in  language  of  rare 
vigour.  These  few  sentences  recount  the 
chief  incidents  of  his  life  —  scarcely  more 
eventful  than  that  of  the  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field, with  its  migration  from  the  brown 
bed  to  the  blue  and  from  the  blue  bed  back 
again  to  the  brown.  It  is  the  old  story  of 
the  man  of  thought,  who  stands  apart  from 
the  pageant  of  human  affairs,  moralising 
on  it  as  it  passes,  and  striving  to  purify 
and  refresh  it  at  the  springs. 


JOHX    R.    G      HASSARD  29I 

Tlie  actual  and  essential  storv'  of  that 
life  lies  deeper  and  would  be  found  beneath 
the  surface,  in  the  current  of  intellectual 
development  and  the  analysis  of  literary 
achievement,  John  Hassard  was  not  one 
of  the  exceptional  few  who  build  monu- 
ments essentially  great  in  literature  and 
thus  strongly  command  and  permanently 
retain  the  attention  and  interest  of  the 
world.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  talents  and 
lovely  character,  who  devoted  himself  to 
the  service  of  journalism,  and  who  made 
his  mark  in  that  field  —  broad,  strong,  bril- 
liant, and  noble.  The  great  public  of  mis- 
cellaneous readers  cannot  rationally  be 
supposed  to  cherish  a  deep  interest  in  such 
a  personality  for  a  great  length  of  time  after 
its  career  has  ended.  But  it  was  a  person- 
ality that  blessed  many  who  never  heard  of 
it,  whOe  those  whose  privilege  it  was  to 
know  his  labours  and  their  value  will  ten- 
derly meditate  now  upon  the  beautiful  traits 
of  his  mind,  the  charm  of  his  companion- 
ship, and  the  lesson  of  his  pure,  blameless, 
devoted,  beneficent  life.  He  would  have 
been  the  first  to  reprove  extravagant  eulogy 
of  his  talents  or  his  productions.  He  filled 
a  difficult  and  delicate  oflice  with  rare  abil- 
ity and  discretion.    He  taught,  by  example, 


292  A    MAN    OF    LP:TTERS  I 

the  primal  necessity  of  being  perfectly  well 
acquainted  with  the  art  he  discussed.  He 
studied  constantly,  he  thought  deeply,  he 
worked  conscientiously  and  with  laborious 
zeal.  His  freedom  from  conventionality 
and  prejudice  was  a  continual  monition  of 
refreshing  originality  of  view  and  justice  of 
mood.  He  looked  at  every  subject  with 
present  eyes,  not  with  the  eyes  of  the  past. 
The  word  that  he  spoke  was  the  word  of 
to-day,  not  of  yesterday,  and  he  never  fell 
into  the  error  of  mistaking  his  personal 
distaste  for  a  defect  in  the  artist  or  the 
work  reviewed.  He  knew,  with  Coleridge, 
that  the  first  requisite  for  a  good  critic  is 
a  good  heart,  and  he  proved  that  he  knew 
it,  every  time  he  took  up  his  pen.  His  keen 
intuition  as  to  the  relative  importance  of 
persons  and  themes  was  constantly  mani- 
fested and  was  still  another  lesson  of  prac- 
tical value.  For  this  journalist  and  man  of 
letters,  this  devotee  of  art  and  music  —  who 
often  sat  alone  for  hours  playing  upon  the 
organ  the  music  that  he  loved,  —  was  also 
a  man  of  the  world.  He  possessed  the 
sense  of  proi)ortion  and  fitness,  an  old-time 
courtliness  of  thinking  as  well  as  of  man- 
ner, a  sense  of  the  right  place  for  trifles, 
and  a  happy  faculty  for  silence.     He  was 


JOHX    R.    G.    HASSARD.  293 

not  envious  and  he  was  not  meddlesome. 
He  never  thought  it  to  be  his  duty  to  regu- 
late the  musical  criticism  of  the  general 
press.  If  he  wanted  a  good  criticism  of  an 
opera  to  be  printed  he  endeavoiu'ed  to  write 
it  himself,  instead  of  writing  querulous 
observations  condemnatory  of  the  remarks 
of  contemporary'  journals.  It  was  another 
of  his  admirable  and  exemplary  qualities 
that  he  perceived  the  critical  duty  of  giving 
encouragement.  He  looked  into  the  future 
of  the  artist,  and  he  could  be  wisely  len- 
ient. In  the  fulfilment  of  his  duty  he 
thought  of  himself  last,  or  not  at  all,  while 
his  dig-nity  was  of  the  natural  kind  that  is 
always  present.  Education  and  experience 
taught  him  how  to  use  fine  faculties  for  the 
best  advantage  of  others. 

Among  the  old-fashioned  phrases  of 
eulogy"  there  is  one  that  long  usage  has 
rendered  conventional ;  but  it  is  very  ex- 
pressive :  He  was  a  gentleman  and  a 
scholar.  It  is  much  to  deserve  those  names. 
John  Hassard  entirely  deserved  them,  and 
he  bore  them  with  the  sweet  modesty, 
unconscious  humility,  and  native  and  win- 
ning gentleness  of  an  unselfish  nature.  He 
was  always  thoughtful  for  others ;  always 
doing  acts  of  courtesv  and  kindness.     He 


294  A    MAN    OF    LETTERS  : 

was  ever  to  be  found  on  tlie  side  of  chivalry 
toward  women,  and  his  active  considera- 
tion for  young  people,  especially  for  work- 
ing boys,  and  his  sweet  manner  toward 
children  much  endeared  him  wherever  he 
went.  His  reading  was  large  and  various. 
He  was  accomplished  in  the  classics ;  he 
had  comprehensive  knowledge  of  English 
literature  ;  and  he  possessed  both  the 
French  language  and  the  German.  As  a 
reviewer  he  early  acquired  the  excellent 
method,  so  long  pursued  and  with  such 
good  result  by  the  late  George  Kipley  — 
the  father  of  the  art  in  America.  That 
method  was  to  assume  the  author's  point  of 
view ;  to  let  the  book  declare  itself,  its  con- 
tents, its  style,  character,  and  intention  ; 
and  then  to  discuss  it  as  a  literary  artist,  an 
observer,  a  thinker,  and  from  essential 
environments  of  its  subject.  He  was 
rarely  severe  and  never  unkind.  He  could 
condemn  explicitly,  but  he  stated  the 
grounds  of  his  judgment,  and  they  were 
invariably  logical  and  sound.  He  was 
remarkably  expert  in  perceiving  the  beau- 
ties of  art,  and  he  loved  to  praise  ;  and, 
as  he  knew  what  had  been  done  by  others 
and  was  quick  to  see  the  fresh  touch  and 
understand  the  subtle  suggestion,  his  praise 


JOHN    R.    Cr.    HASSARD.  295 

gave  pleasure,  rewarded  merit,  encouraged 
high  endeavour,  and  was  valuable.  His 
sympathies  went  with  the  imagination  and 
the  affections,  in  literature,  not  with  the 
morbid  passions  and  not  with  the  "realis- 
tic ' '  movement  in  any  of  its  phases.  He 
rightly  abhorred  the  art  represented  by  M. 
Zola ;  he  justly  despised  the  whole  brood 
of  Ouida  novelists  ;  and,  in  common  with 
other  sane  persons,  he  smiled  at  the  weak- 
ness, which,  mistaking  the  assertion  of 
power  for  power  itself,  accepts  such  writ- 
ings as  those  of  the  late  Walt  Whitman  for 
poetry.  He  was  sufficiently  conservative 
to  love  the  novels  of  Scott  and  the  poems 
of  Crabbe.  and  he  was  sufficiently  compre- 
hensive, acute,  and  fair-minded,  while 
recognising  the  passion  and  splendour  of 
Byron,  to  appreciate  and  exult  in  the  philo- 
sophic grandeur,  the  solemn  tenderness, 
the  beautiful  simplicity,  and  the  comforting 
faith  of  Wordsworth.  Those  are  significant 
indications  of  the  character  of  his  mmd, 
the  mood  in  which  he  lived  and  laboured, 
and  the  ideals  toward  which  he  strove. 

And  so  he  passed  into  his  rest.  He  was 
a  bright  and  gentle  presence  in  the  life  of 
everj'  man  and  woman  to  whom  he  was 
ever  known.     He  lived   a   ffood   life.     He 


296  A    MAN    OK    LKTTERS. 

suffered  patiently.  He  met  his  fate  with 
humble  resignation  and  firm  composure. 
He  helped,  in  a  material  degree,  to  ad- 
vance the  standard  of  musical  art  and  lit- 
erary taste  in  the  republic.  He  has  left 
critical  essays  which  are  models  of  search- 
ing thought,  just  judgment,  cheering  sym- 
pathy, and  felicitous  expression.  The 
sketches  with  which  he  enriched  our  liter- 
ature in  its  lighter  branches  are  of  singular 
beauty,  graceful  in  their  form  and  move- 
ment, often  illumined  with  playful  humour, 
always  vital  with  the  appreciative  sincerity 
of  critical  enthusiasm.  His  biographical 
writings  are  discriminative,  judicious,  and 
truthful,  and  are  couched  in  a  terse  and 
lucid  style.  He  was  a  devout  man,  rigid  in 
his  principles  and  pure  in  his  life ;  but  he 
was  invariably  charitable,  magnanimous, 
and  tender  in  his  judgment  of  others.  No 
human  being  was  ever  more  quick  than  he 
to  appreciate  merit  or  to  forgive  frailty  and 
palliate  defect.  He  was  much  beloved  ;  he 
is  deeply  mourned  ;  and  he  will  long  be 
remembered. 


THE    END. 


To  be  had  at  all  the  Railway  Bookstalls. 
AMERICAN  AUTHORS. 

POCKET   EDITIONS    IN   ONE  SHILLING    VOLUMES. 

By  Post,  Is,  2d. 

PrinUd  hy  Constable,  and  published  with  the  sanction  of  the  Author?. 


By  W.  D.  HOWELLS. 

The  Shadow  of  a  Dream. 
The  Rise  OF  Silas  LAPHAii.  2  v. 
A  Foregone  Conclusion. 
A  Chance  Acquaintance. 
Their  Wedding  Journey. 
A  Counterfeit  Presentment. 
The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook. 

2  vols. 
Out  of  the  Question. 
The  Unt)I3covered  Country. 

2  vols. 
A  Fearful  Responsibility. 
Venetian  Life.     2  vols. 
Italian  Journeys.     2  vols. 
Indian  Summer.     2  vols. 
An  Imperative  Duty. 

By  O.  W.  HOLMES. 

The  Autocrat  of  the  Break- 
fast Table.     2  vols. 
The  Poet.     2  vols. 
The  Professor.     2  vols. 
Poetical  Works.    4  vols. 

By  HELEN  JACKSON, 

Zeph,  a  Posthumous  Story. 

By  MATT,  CRIM. 
In  Beaver  Cove, 

By  G.  W.  CURTIS. 
Prue  and  I. 

By  J.  C.  HARRIS. 

Mingo,  and  other  Sketches, 

By  F.  R.  STOCKTON. 

Rudder  Grange. 

The  Lady  or  the  Tiger? 

A  Borrowed  Month. 


By  B.  W.   HOWARD. 

One  Summer.     A  Novel. 
By  J.  BURROUGHS. 

Winter  Sunshine. 

Pepacton. 

Locusts  and  Wild  Honey. 

Wake-Robin, 

Birds  and  Poets, 

Fresh  Fields, 

By  G,  W,  CABLE. 
Old  Creole  Days. 
Madame  Delphine. 

By  G.  P.   LATHROP. 

An  Echo  of  Passion. 

By  R,  G,  WHITE. 
Mr,  Washington  Adams, 
By  T,   B,  ALDRICH. 

The  Queen  of  Sheba. 
Marjorie  Daw. 
Prudence  Palfrey. 
Stillwater  Tragedy.    2  vols. 
Wyndham  Towers. 

By  JAMES  L,  ALLEN. 
Flute  antd  Violin. 
Sister  Dolorosa, 

By  B,  MATTHEWS  and 
H,  C,  BUNNER. 
In  Partnership, 
By  WILLIAM  WINTER. 

Shakespeare's  Englant). 

Wanderers, 

Gray  Days  and  Gold. 

By  MARY  E.  WILKINS. 
A  Humble  Romance. 
A  Far-away  Melody. 


Others  in  preparation. 


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